


In the dark, where no one will know...

by PrairieDawn



Series: Changesverse [3]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Bugs, Canon Temporary Character Death, Episode retcon, Episode: s03e01 Spectre of the Gun, Genocide, Gun Violence, Multi, People Covered in Bugs, Tarsus IV mentions, Telepathy, You Have Been Warned, simulations, slime monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:52:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Kirk and his bondmates are sent on a mission to contact the mysterious Melkotians in order to save their world and many others from an approaching gamma ray burst.Retcon of Spectre of the Gun with a telepathically competent Triumvirate and a justifiable excuse for not leaving the Melkotians the heck alone.  Set in the Changesverse.





	1. Why are we not just turning around?

**Author's Note:**

> When I was a kid, I liked this episode because I'm a sucker for reality bending.
> 
> I rewatched it a couple of years ago to provide context for a fic, and realized just how shaky the continuity on the original episode really is--so I decided I wanted to know some things: Why is it so important to the Admiralty that they talk to the Melkotians? Why does everyone seem to reason so poorly from the moment they arrive on the planet's surface? Did they beam down or not? What the heck is going on?!! 
> 
> Anyway, the Changesverse, with a formally bonded Triumvirate that includes two telepaths and an empath (there were some unfortunate side effects from the Tantalus device), gave me the opportunity to play with the scaffolding underneath the illusion.
> 
> Also: When I said people would be covered in bugs, I meant it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

The Enterprise came up slowly on the Melkotian system, keeping an eye out for any sign of artificial satellites or probes. Very little was known about the beings living on the second planet, other than that they were capable of putting objects into space, and that those objects had destroyed Vulcan probes sent nearby on routine mapping surveys around two hundred years ago. Jim turned to his bondmate, his restlessness leading him into temptation. Spock crouched over the sensor display. “Oh, science officer?” he said. 

“Yes, Captain?”

“What’s it look like out there?”

“There are three objects with a material composition and density that suggests manufacture, rather than natural origins. None are emitting any active scans at present. Belay that—” He turned back to the display.

Jim admired the view from behind and projected his appreciation. “What’s that, _science officer_?”

“One of the probes has broken orbit around the gas giant marking the edge of the system and is approaching our position.”

“Good. Let’s get this party started.” He turned to face the viewscreen, which showed a cylindrical probe, lit with colored lights along fins which looked like they might be solar collectors. “Spock, continue to move us in closer to the planet.”

“Probe is on Mark 8 and closing,” Spock said.

“Steady as she goes, Mr. Sulu.” He tapped the link to Engineering. “Phaser crews stand by.”

Chekov checked in, “Range forty five thousand kilometers, Captain.”

“Let’s give it a chance to come in and investigate, show it we’re not a threat,” Jim said. “Any additional information you can give me, Mr. Spock.”

“It is an unmanned mechanical probe. I surmise it intends to intercept, as it has made several course changes in order to maintain contact with the ship. The material is an unknown organosilicate crystal, combined with several metal alloys. The internal components, those I can identify, are consistent with normal space and subspace scanning equipment and transmitters, though some seem calibrated to interact with neutrino fields as well as photons.” 

“Understood. Do you think it is designed to attack us?”

“Unclear. I do not see any obvious weapons. However, many varieties of scanning beams, if allowed to overload, can cause damage.”

“So it’s more likely here to communicate, rather than attack.”

“That would be my assumption.”

“Thank you, science officer,” Jim said, returning to his seat. They had made a habit of referring to each other by rank or position on the bridge, as a way of compartmentalizing their personal and professional lives. It made no difference, really, but it made the admiralty happy. “Come to 181 Mark 7, take us around the gas giant and into range of the presumed Melkotian homeworld.”

Sulu made the course correction, and the probe followed, closing on the ship still further. “It would appear that the object intends either to stop us or escort us the rest of the way to the planet,” Spock noted. The probe made a course correction of its own then, passing directly between the Enterprise and the planet, and holding its ground as the Enterprise approached.

“Full stop. Let’s see what this thing intends.”

The device approached to within ten thousand, then five thousand, then one thousand kilometers, not stopping until it was a mere four kilometers off the Enterprise’s bow. And then, it spoke. “Aliens,” it said, both aloud and very clearly in his head. He could feel the buzzing weight of telepathy at the base of his skull. He turned to Spock, who nodded confirmation and took a couple of quick steps closer so that they were side by side. “You have encroached on the space of the Melkot.”

“You will turn back immediately,” he heard, the signal clearly calibrated to mimic the feel of speech. He could feel Spock winding their shields together, leaving space for the signal to come through, but ready to exclude any semblance of an attack. “This is the only warning you will receive.”

Chekov turned to look at the two of them. “That wasn’t really Russian, was it?”

“No, Ensign, it was not. Good catch. Uhura, you heard?”

“Swahili, more or less.”

Sulu chipped in with, “Standard.”

“And it bypassed all five of our,” he paused with a pointed look toward Chekov, “Four of our shields like they weren’t even there. I do want to remind you that, given the history this ship has with attracting telepathic entities, hostile and otherwise, you are supposed to keep mental shields active on duty, Mr. Chekov.”

Chekov hunched a little sheepishly. “I didn’t realize I’d lost track of them, sir. I can’t exactly tell when they’re working.”

“We’ll address that later. For now, our orders are clear. We are to establish contact with the Melkotians at all costs. We all know what’s at stake here.”

“Telepaths of that caliber can be most formidable,” Spock noted. “And we have been warned.”

Jim nodded. “That we have. My guess is the Melkotians don’t have the deep space capability to know what’s coming for them. We’ve got to get through.”

“Given that there is no evidence their presence in space has ever extended beyond the boundaries of their own solar system, I would agree with your guess.”

Given the reception the Vulcan probes had received, Starfleet had been content to give the system a wide berth until Eta Carinae went hypernova. In truth, the star, seventy five hundred light-years away near the border between the gamma and beta quadrants, had blown its top over seven thousand years ago, but about fifteen years ago, the most distant unmanned probes had found and traced the advance of the intense beam of gamma rays it had released, energy that would pierce through the alpha and beta quadrants, leaving destruction in its wake. To save the dozens of inhabited worlds in the path of the Eta Carinae gamma ray burst, a massive, multilayer barrier composed of mirrors and diffusers, many of them as small as motes of dust, to safely dissipate the gamma rays before they scoured the surfaces of the worlds in their path. Unfortunately, the Melkotian system was both in the path of the gamma ray burst and an ideal location, because of the shepherding effects of its binary star, to site one of the larger dissipating arrays. Starfleet had sent the Enterprise to make contact, at all costs. Not all reasonable costs. All costs.

Jim loved when the Admiralty undermined his ability to make decisions based on local conditions like that. The whole bridge sizzled with the bridge crew’s tension, making him want to squirm in his chair. He took a moment to close his eyes and trace the thread to his other bondmate in Sickbay, who warded him off irritably and told him to keep his brains to himself and stop distracting him in the middle of his shift. He returned to the task at hand. “Lieutenant Uhura, hailing frequencies. I’m going to assume if they can put words into our heads they’ll interpret our hail as an intent to communicate.” He got up from his chair to pace, waiting for Uhura to find a workable frequency.

“Ready to transmit, sir.”

Jim stepped into a clear space on the bridge. “This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, representing the United Federation of Planets. We have contacted your buoy and understand its message. Our mission is both peaceful and of the most critical importance to both you and ourselves.”

“Lieutenant, any answer?”

Uhura turned to them. “None, sir. But the previous communication also fails to appear in the record.”

“As well it might,” Spock noted. “I will place a transcript of the message into the logs, if you will each confirm its accuracy.”

“Try sending one more time.”

“Still no response, sir.”

“Opinion, Science Officer Spock,” he said.

“I would prefer being a welcome guest, Captain, but it would seem we have little choice.”

“None whatsoever.” The Admiralty had made that abundantly clear, as had communications from the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, which held the records from the previous contact. “And under the circumstances, we really are the best ship for the job.” He sat back in his chair. “Mr. Chekov, deflectors at full intensity. Put us in orbit around Melkot.”

“Aye, sir.”

He looked around the bridge. “Mr. Chekov, Mr. Spock, with me. Uhura, let Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy know to meet us in transporter room two. Mr. Sulu, you have the con.” He put on a smile he didn’t feel, for Chekov’s benefit if no one else’s. “Let’s find out what they’re so afraid of.”

*

Seen from orbit, Melkot was an inhospitable world, redder than Vulcan, though closer in temperature range to Earth. It had no discernible population centers, though there were some regions on the surface that had a sort of spiraling regularity that suggested intelligent design. The darkest reds had the spectral characteristics of the red and orange variants of chlorophyll, which would efficiently collect the light of the orange K1 star the planet circled. It appeared that whoever built the probes lived under ground, since no surface animal life larger than a cat could be detected. They put down near the edge of one of the spirals in hopes of encountering anyone who might direct them to planetary authorities, if there were any such authorities to contact.

It was apparent as soon as the sparkling haze of transport cleared that they were not where they were supposed to be. There was no pink sky, nor deep russet ground, nor signs of civilization, just thick, swirling fog and the unsettling feeling that something was terribly wrong. Jim bent almost immediately to touch the ground, then stood, confusion in the lines of his face and flowing across the bond. Spock copied his gesture, but by the time he stood, he couldn’t remember what the ground had felt like when he touched it; dry or damp, grassy or barren, warm or cold. He felt nauseous and dizzy, as though his equilibrium had been compromised. Drugs, perhaps?

Or something more insidious. They were, after all, dealing with a species able to project their minds half a billion kilometers powerfully enough to breach his and Jim’s shields without so much as a ripple, a feat both impressive and deeply disturbing. “Mr. Scott,” he said. Even his voice sounded wrong, as though the fog swallowed its resonance.

“Yes, sir,” Scott said.

“Take Dr. McCoy, walk five paces to the left, count to ten, and return.”

Bones turned to him, frowning. “I don’t like the idea of walking into that fog.”

“Please, Doctor.” Spock reached out to brush his fingers, attempting to pass reassurance through the bond. The contact felt blunted, devoid of the electric frisson typical of _ozh’esta_ , or even of the normal pressure of skin on skin. Bones met his eyes, clearly equally taken aback, but resolutely took Scott’s arm and paced away into the fog until it swallowed him completely.

Jim stepped closer to Spock, who held up a hand to request his silence. “A moment, Captain,” he said. He thinned his shields to reach toward the two men, expecting their presence to fade with distance. It failed to do so. Ten seconds passed, and another ten. “Jim,” Spock said. “The doctor has forgotten his task.” Jim opened up his end of the bond to lend power to Spock’s call while shouting aloud, “Bones, Scotty, back this way!”

In a few moments, Bones stumbled back toward them, dragging Scotty by the arm. “We got turned around, couldn’t find you,” he said.

Spock shook his head. “I believe you were prevented from remembering where we were, Doctor. Jim, what does this space remind you of?”

The captain considered. He waved a hand through the mist. “I don’t know, there’s not a lot of anything here to be reminded of. It’s a nothing of a place.”

“It doesn’t have a smell,” Chekov said.

“There are no birds or insects, no wind,” McCoy said. “There’s no sound except the sounds we make ourselves.”

Jim smacked his fist into his palm, then lifted his hands to regard the palms. “It’s like a mindscape. Blank, though.” He turned to Scotty and Chekov. “They’ve got in our heads. This isn’t real. We’re not really here.”

“Precisely, Captain,” Spock said. “Mr. Scott, I sent you and Dr. McCoy a short distance from the group in order to test whether the telepathic signal you, as intelligent life forms, produce would weaken with distance, as it should in a real environment. It did not, which means that we remained for the duration of the experiment precisely zero point seven two meters apart. Given that our proximity was point nine zero meters apart on the transporter pad, that would indicate that we have moved, but only slightly, and are currently standing still.”

“Lying still, more likely,” McCoy corrected. “We probably fell when we lost consciousness.”

“No sense trying the communicators, then. Any response or no response would be simulated. So, what do we do about it?” Jim said.

Spock summarized their situation, not least because he could feel his own mind slipping and dimming, his memory becoming less precise, and he imagined the effect was more pronounced on the human members of the crew, especially on Chekov and Scotty, who had relatively limited experience with telepathy. “We have arrived uninvited to an alien domain. I believe it is the Melkotians’ move. Dr. McCoy, as the three of us are bonded, we are better able to check each other’s perceptions than are Mr. Scott and Mr. Chekov. It would be wise to consider—”

They were cut off by the appearance of a figure in front of them, a roughly spherical shape, the edges of which faded into wisps of mist. It had a pair of glowing spots resembling eyes, a little higher and farther apart than humanoid eyes. It seemed to regard them for a few moments. Spock felt the weight and stretch of time moving strangely around him. He reached out with both hands to steady Jim and Leonard, finding the blunting of his touch telepathy disturbing in the extreme, but believing that the apparent physical connection could help them to access the bond more easily. He could neither stop the entity from taking whatever it might wish from their minds, nor even determine what was being read.

“Our warning was plain,” the being said. “You have disregarded it.” 

Jim turned to face the creature square on. Spock flowed in behind the creature’s contact, lightly touching and testing for damage to Jim and Leonard, then worked to expand the link between them. Jim took a moment to gather Leonard closer as well. Leonard waved a hand through the fog. It responded, though only slightly, to his will, clearing a small space in front of him. Spock’s attention was caught by the movement. If Leonard could affect their environment, even slightly, there was a chance that a concerted effort would have greater effect.

“You will be punished,” the being said. “You, Captain Kirk, the disobedience was on your orders. Yours is the responsibility. You will provide the pattern for your punishment.”

Jim reached for Spock and Leonard, the better to present a united front. Spock allowed Jim to expand their link into a light meld, glad that the existing bond and Jim’s stronger talent allowed him the power to do so without physical contact in the real world. Leonard grumbled a bit at being _dragged into all this again,_ but he settled against them and allowed Jim to serve as their combined voice. “We come in peace,” he said. He picked up the image Spock put forward of Eta Carinae exploding, sending a beam of destruction toward Melkot, caught Leonard’s response to Spock’s concept, full as it was with terror and compassion for the worlds that would be affected, for the Melkotians themselves, and held it out for the being to see.

They did not get the impression that the being was listening. “You are outside,” the being continued. “You are disease. The disease must be destroyed. Your plea has been heard, and sentence has been passed. It is done.” There was a discontinuity, like an eyeblink, and they were no longer where they had been.


	2. Where, If Anywhere, Are We?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The landing party is subjected to a low budget facsimile of Tombstone, Arizona. Because no good deed goes unpunished.

Reality didn’t shudder or shift, there was none of the expected sense of falling or being drawn in a particular direction. They simply were in one nonplace at one moment and then they were in another place, a place where the ground felt solid under Jim’s feet. He bent to lift a handful of dust and allow it to drain through his fingers. Spock stood beside him, and Bones, and beyond them Scott and Chekov, and for a moment he could not remember why they’d beamed down to this windswept locale. He took in the buildings, or more precisely the building facades, and the foreshortened horizon. 

Spock spoke first. “They appear to have increased their understanding of how t manipulate our perceptions, Captain,” he said.

“It looks like we’re in the old North American West,” Jim said. There was something important he couldn’t quite recall. Bones scuffed at the dirt with one booted foot. Scott and Chekov seemed the worst off, staring blankly at their surroundings as if unable to make sense of them at all.

Chekov found his voice. “Where are we now, Captain?”

Jim approached Spock. “Analysis?”

Spock responded with another question. “Do you remember where you just were?” A probe, gentle and tinged with concern accompanied his words.

It took a moment for Jim to retrieve the memory, as though he had just awakened and was trying to recall a dream. “We beamed down to Melkot. We’re being punished for trespassing. We were in an unformed mindspace, and now we’re here.” 

Spock quirked an eyebrow. “Clearly this represents the Melkotians’ impression of a frontier town, in the southwest portion of the North American continent, on Earth circa 1880 old Earth dating system,” Spock said.

Bones swept his tricorder over Chekov, looked at it, and tucked it back in its bag. “Doesn’t work.” He took in the view. “They’ve only rendered bits and pieces. It’s like the set of a stage play.”

Spock nodded agreement. “It is likely there are limits either to the Melkotians ability to extract our knowledge of this place and time, or to accurately reconstruct it in all of our minds.”

“What do you mean, reconstruct it?” Scott said.

Jim turned to him. “We’re still stuck in a Melkotian illusion, Scotty. Just a different one.” He stamped his feet. “It’s a lot more solid than the other one. They’re learning as they go.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Scott said.

“Let’s hope not,” Jim replied. “Maybe this level of detail is all they need to complete the ‘pattern of our death’.”

“Like a Passion play,” Scott said.

Spock acknowledged Scott’s statement with another raised eyebrow. “An apt analogy, Mr. Scott.”

Scott hefted the gun holstered at his side. They each had one, perfect reproductions of antique six-shooters, heavy, smelling of metal and oil, and fantastically detailed. “And these?”

Jim studied his own. “Beautiful specimens. Museum pieces.” He looked closer at it. It was an exact replica of the only such piece he had ever held, down to the pattern of scuffs and scratches on the handle and the barrel. He called up an image in his mind and passed it to Spock. “Check your gun. There should be a pair of scratches near the base of the barrel that look a little like a lowercase “y”.”

Spock examined his own projectile weapon. “As you say.” The other three men examined their guns and nodded. “Identical even to accidental damage.”

“My grandfather’s,” Jim said. “A collector’s item. He used to take it out and let me hold it—I even got to fire it at a target a few times when I was kid.”

“I guess I should be glad you didn’t blow a hole in yourself back then,” Bones said. He slid his own back into its holster, gingerly, as though it might go off at any moment.

“I am not as accident prone as you think I am, Bones.” He holstered his own weapon. “Whatever the Melkotians have planned for us, it won’t be pleasant.”

Scotty frowned. “So the question is, after the Passion play, do they intend for us to be dead, or do we meet in the lobby for biscuits and tea?”

Spock regarded him gravely. “I suspect they intend the former, Mr. Scott.”

Bones rocked, heel to toe beside him, a manifestation of his nervous energy. “So is this a dream or isn’t it, Spock? You’re the designated expert.”

“This is a construct. Its ability to affect us will depend on our willingness to accept it as real and to allow the Melkotians control of the environment. Consequently, we must begin searching for weaknesses in the facade. They must exist. The limited nature of the stage on which we find ourselves is an indication of that fact.”

Jim nodded. “So, if we’re merely players, what parts have we been assigned?”

A gust of wind conveniently rattled the boards behind them. Jim caught sight of the broadsheet pinned to the wall. If pressed, he could not have said whether it had been there since they arrived or had appeared only when it was needed. “Tombstone, Arizona, October 26th, 1881.” He frowned. “Shootout at the OK Corral.” He turned to the rest of the group. “It occurred to me, briefly, just after we beamed down.”

“We insisted on intruding where we were not wanted,” Spock suggested as explanation.

“And the Melkotians seized upon that thin connection—”

“To choose the pattern of our destruction. Indeed.” A flicker of memory caught at the edge of Jim’s consciousness, blood and tears and phaser fire. At least they hadn’t chosen that piece of history to torment them. Spock pressed fingers to the back of his wrist, the illusion of contact helping him shutter the memory. Jim flipped his hand over to give Spock’s a surreptitious squeeze.

“So somehow our presence here, on the day of the shootout at the OK Corral, will allow the Melkotians to lead us to our deaths,” Spock said. “The question is, how?”

“We keep talking like we’re really in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881,” Bones noted.

Chekov blinked. “Aren’t we?”

Jim turned to Chekov, but could not get a good sense of his mental state. He must be further away than he seemed to be. 

Spock shook his head. “Mr. Chekov, we are in a mindscape, an artificial environment created by the natives of this world.”

“Aye, sir,” the ensign said, dubiously.

Scott and Chekov were at a serious disadvantage here without the reinforcement Jim and his bondmates had, given their ability to test their impressions against each other and their greater experience with mental constructs. If they could get even a short breather, he ought to bring the two of them into their link, temporarily, to offer some protection. Now, apparently, wasn’t that time. A figure emerged from a building facade marked “Sheriff”. “Ike!” the presumed sheriff called, approaching them. “Ike, Frank, Billy, Tom, I was afraid you weren’t going to make it!” He approached, smiling broadly. He looked exactly like Jim’s own grandfather. 

“Looks like we did,” Jim said. He accepted the offered handshake, intending to use it to get a brief impression of the being’s mind. There was nothing behind the sheriff’s smile. The figure had the form of a human being, but little substance. The Melkotians had added a sort of veneer of emotion, but in a bland, one note way that could be easily distinguished from the symphony that was the mental presence of a real, living being.

“I knew you wouldn’t let them scare you away,” it said. “They’re a bunch of hot air, if you ask me.”

“Are they really?” Spock chose this moment to engage the figure.

Jim sent to him, _That’s my grandfather’s face they stole._

The simulacrum continued with undisguised enthusiasm. “Now they’re going to have to fight after the way they shot off their mouths.” 

“You know us?” Jim asked. It was the sort of question it might be programmed to answer.

It laughed. “You’re funny, Ike. Of course I know you. That’s what I like about you. You always see the funny side.” It gripped Jim’s upper arm in a gesture of cameraderie, its body language unaffected by Jim’s stiff lack of response, as though it were merely reading a part.

“I’m a barrel of laughs,” Jim said, grimly, tugging himself out of the thing’s grasp. 

“Nobody can say Johnny Behan doesn’t have a sense of humor.” It walked through the group and away. 

Jim called after it. “Johnny!” But it didn’t return. He turned back to the landing party. “So I’m Ike, Spock, you’re Frank, Bones, you’re Tom, and you two are both Billy. Ike Clanton, Tom and Frank McClowery, Billy Clayborn and Billy Clanton. We can’t be sure yet which is which, though.”

Spock clarified for Chekov and Scott. “The Earps and Doc Holliday vs. The Clanton gang, Tombstone Arizona, April 1881.”

“We’re were warned, and we came anyway. So we have to die. Just like the Clanton gang,” Jim summarized.

“I don’t understand, Captain,” Chekov said. “We’re supposed to be these other people?”

“Yes, Ensign.”

“Like in a play. But with real bullets.”

“That remains to be seen, Mr. Chekov,” Spock said. “We have not yet gathered enough data to form hypotheses as to the manner in which the Melkotians expect to orchestrate our demise, given that this environment has no more substance than—”

His words were interrupted by a crash. A chair flew through the window of what could best be described as the saloon set, then a man stumbled out the swinging doors. He turned to draw his weapon, and another man, dressed in black and wearing a star shaped badge, gunned him down. The man, presumably an Earp, looked up from his victim to meet Jim’s eyes. The landing party rushed toward the victim, while the figure of Earp backed impassively through the saloon doors, as though, his part having been played, he had no further place in the proceedings.

Bones knelt to examine the victim, Jim beside him. “He’s dead.”

And he certainly looked dead. He didn’t even have the flat, one-note aura that Johnny had. There was nothing there at all. He looked so much like all the bodies he’d seen and he felt himself losing control of himself again, then the bond wrapped around him to bolster him and he looked up to see Bones’ hand wrapped around his arm. The doctor shrugged. “I know, nothing feels right in here.” 

Jim nodded, then pressed his fingers to the man’s temple. He could have been touching a dummy. “Bones, how quickly would a wound like that cause brain death?”

“Not for another couple minutes, until the brain was sufficiently starved of oxygen.”

“I don’t think this, whatever it is, was ever alive.”

Spock stood sentry with Chekov, watching the perimeter. “Our senses are being fed false data by the Melkotians. Unless we can determine a means to break through it, we are trapped here, and must play out whatever scenario they intend.” 

“How do they expect to kill us, then? If none of this is real?” Scotty said.

Spock considered. “Evidence strongly suggests that we are all still in roughly the same relative positions as when we stood on the transporter pad. If we reached the surface, as long as we are in this state, we cannot call the ship for assistance. We are at risk, over time, from exposure or predation. Doctor, what might be the effect on the body of a severe shock, such as what might occur if we were led to believe we died?”

Bones sat back on his haunches. “Given that we’re all generally healthy, that alone is unlikely to be fatal. But this whole charade might just be a ploy to give them time to figure out how our brains work enough to shut off our autonomic functions.”

Spock continued, “It is also possible that this experience is intended as a formality, and that our bodies will simply be dispatched at its close.”

“And if we’re still on the ship?” Jim prompted.

“If so, we can expect to be moved shortly by medical corpsmen, at which point the Captain or I may have an opportunity to communicate with shipboard personnel. I suggest you remain alert to the possibility, Captain.”

 

A player piano started up “inside” the saloon. Bones stood. “What do you say, should we play along or make them work for it?”

Scott and Chekov were already moving toward the swinging doors. Jim and Bones jogged a couple of steps to keep the group together, Spock following at a more measured pace.

“At this time I believe that we would benefit from the additional intelligence interacting with the simulation will provide.”

“We play along then. Gentlemen,” Jim stood to lead the landing party through the swinging door. _Spock, we need to find a moment to bring Scotty and Chekov into our link. They’re not staying focused._

The bartender met them at the door to the saloon, which was attended by a total of six simulacra. Jim’s seventh grade English teacher, dressed as a bartender, said, “Ike, Frank, hiya boys, I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

A blonde woman turned around, took one look at Chekov, and rushed at him to plant a kiss on him while he stood there blinking. “Billy, baby, I knew they couldn’t keep you out of town!”

“Oh, you knew that,” he said, his voice gone a little vague.

“Come on,” she told him. She took him by the elbow and led him, unresisting, from the group. She looked familiar. Everyone looked familiar, but he didn’t have the time or energy to identify each of them.

Spock stared after. “I am unable to reach Mr. Chekov, nor am I certain he is merely ‘playing along’ with the simulation any longer.”

“Understood,” Jim told him. He shifted his focus, trying to find and match Chekov’s mental pattern through the noise, but his concentration was broken by the black clothed marshall passing between the four of them and Chekov, glaring. No coincidence that. _They’re separating him on purpose._ He gestured to where the woman was seating Chekov at a table, and moved to sit near the two of them. They were conversing as though they knew each other, though Chekov’s responses were still delayed, as if he was confused.

“You’re taking crazy chances, what with Morgan Earp right there,” the woman said.

Morgan Earp. Bones, Spock, and Scotty joined them at the table. He racked his memory for the specifics. _Morgan Earp. The man who kills on sight_ Scotty jammed a knuckle in his ear to scrub at it, eliciting a half-smile from McCoy. Chekov seemed not to have even heard, and was still fully occupied with the female simulacrum.

Earp took a couple of menacing steps forward. Jim stood and turned to face the simulacrum along with Spock. The man in black flipped open his jacket, displaying his weapon. _Don’t move suddenly and keep your hands in view, ashayam,_ , Spock said. Ordinarily he did not use endearments, even subvocally, while they were on duty. That he would do so now showed the depth of his concern.

Jim spread his fingers wide and held his hands far from his sides while he slowly returned to his seat. The bartender simulacrum waited for the moment of tension to pass, then approached the table. “You boys want your usual?”

“Half a gallon of Scotch,” Scotty said. At least he was still himself, for the most part.

Jim’s seventh grade English teacher frowned. “You know we ain’t got nothing but bourbon,” he said. “Unless you like corn whiskey.” Scott shrugged acceptance of the substitution.

“I wish it was all over,” the tantalizingly familiar young woman said. “Ike, I saw Virgil out patrolling this morning,” she continued.

Who was Virgil? The only other man they’d met was Johnny. “And?” he said, not at all interested in playing the part.

“They’ve been blowing off all over town, how they got the Clantons run out.” She ran her fingers over Chekov’s shoulders and squeezed. He turned to cover her hand with his own and smiled. Jim needed to get his attention off of her for a moment, get him away from this sick game long enough to weave him into their link. “You’ll show ‘em now, won’t you.”

Morgan Earp approached again and Jim flinched. He remembered that face. It was the face of a man he had killed long ago. He’d been small enough to look up into that face then, the way he was doing right now from his seat at the table. It took him a moment to find his voice. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

Morgan reached over to the young woman. “You’ll dirty yourself with this scum. Now come on!” He yanked her away from Chekov, who stood to confront him.

“Get your hands off her!” he shouted.

“Now, Claiborne,” Morgan threatened.

Jim leapt up to get between the two of them, holding his hands empty and high. Claiborne. That at least let him know which Billy was which. “All right, all right,” he said, not knowing whether placating made any difference at all. Maybe he could demonstrate better behavior than he assumed the Clanton Gang had? “We’re not looking for trouble.”

“If you don’t want any trouble why are you in my town?” the simulacrum demanded.

“You brought us here!” he said, frustrated and kept off balance by the dead man’s face staring back at him out of his past. There were so many ways Jim could respond, knowing the simulacra were scripted, knowing the Melkotians had to be listening. He made himself calm down, drawing on both Spock and Bones beside him. “We came back to warn you. And to offer help.”

The simulacrum froze for a couple of seconds, then spoke as though it hadn’t even heard him. “You’d like me to draw, here, against all five of you, wouldn’t you?” it said. “I will. Soon enough.” It backed out the door, not taking its eyes off the five of them.

“Chekov,” Jim said, as soon as the woman moved to the door. “Look at me.”

“Who?” Chekov said.

Dammit. “Billy!”

Chekov looked up. “I don’t like him manhandling my girl,” he protested.

“Your name is Pavel Chekov,” Jim said, gripping the ensign’s wrist, casting for the pattern of his thoughts. Chekov had been on the far side of the platform, with Bones and Scotty between them, at the edge of Jim’s range. It would be difficult to reach him even without the interference put up by the Melkotians. The pattern caught at last, just enough to draw the ensign back to himself.

Chekov blinked. “Aye, Captain.” He was scared now. Good. He needed to be.

“We need to bring you and Scotty into our link, temporarily,” he said, but before he could continue, the bartender returned with glasses. 

“That was close, Ike. You were lucky there weren’t two of them.” He set the glasses down, breaking Jim’s eye contact with Chekov and causing him to have to release his wrist as well.

“I guess so,” Jim said. _They’re splitting Chekov off intentionally. Do not let him out of your sight._

 _For all the good that will do,_ Bones muttered into his drink. 

The bartender continued. “Sylvia’s right. They’ve been badmouthing something fierce all over town. You boys better watch it.” His last sentence was a direct quote of Jim’s English teacher, in the exact same tone, something he said every time the group of rowdy boys at the back of the class got a little too disruptive.

“I assure you, sir, we will watch it, and everything, extremely closely,” Spock replied, deadpan, eliciting the involuntary grin and release of tension he had clearly been hoping for from Jim, though the simulacrum took no heed of the double meaning in his words.

The woman, Sylvia apparently, circled in to clasp Chekov around the neck, again making sure they were separated. “Billy, you were wonderful.” She planted a kiss on him, which Chekov accepted with enthusiasm, and Jim felt the fragile connection he’d started to build snap. 

“Mr. Chekov?” he said, with little hope of being answered. He waited a beat. “Billy!”

Chekov ignored him.

“Young lady,” Jim said, trying a different tactic. He repeated himself. “Young lady—Sylvia. I’d like to speak to Billy alone.”

She pouted in his general direction.

“If you don’t mind.”

“All right, I understand,” she said, surprising him a little. She turned back to Chekov. “Billy Claiborne, you be careful,” she told him before rising to her feet and walking away to lean against the bar, well within earshot.

Jim took hold of Chekov’s arm, more to get his attention than anything else. “Ensign,” he said, reminding the younger man of his rank. Chekov blinked at him for a moment, then said, “Yes, sir?”

“You too, Scotty.”

He looked up from his glass of bourbon. “It’s decent bourbon,” he said.

“That’s because it’s the kind _I_ like,” Bones noted. “I can feel them poking at me, trying to distract me, trying to get in here,” he pointed to his temple. “I don’t like it.”

“I haven’t noticed anything,” Scott said.

“I haven’t either, Captain,” Chekov said. “Maybe it’s because the three of you are more susceptible.”

Spock shook his head. “I fear it is the opposite. Since we have arrived, you have forgotten that you are not Billy Claiborne at least twice. I suspect more. The two of you simply do not have sufficient resistance to detect when your minds are being tampered with by these beings.”

“You think you can stop them?” Scott asked. “If I’m to die, I want to do it as myself.”

“I would rather not die at all, if that can be arranged, sir,” Chekov said.

Jim consulted his memory. “The shootout at the OK Corral occurred at five o’clock in the afternoon. According to the clock here, it is a little after two. That gives us three hours.”

“Assuming that time progresses in a linear fashion here,”Spock noted.

“Killjoy,” Bones said.

“Well I, for one, don’t plan to be there at five o’clock. But in order to break out of this little history play, we’ve all got to work together. And in a space like this, that means linking our minds with you two, so we can protect each other. Do you understand?”

“Aye,” Scott said. He knocked back a shot of imaginary bourbon for courage.

“Aye, sir,” Chekov said, his head already turning to follow Sylvia’s progress across the saloon.

Jim turned to Spock. “Spock, do you think that you can meld with Scott? I’m going to try to reach Chekov and I’m going to need to use Bones as a booster. Out in the real world, he’s standing between us.”

“Lying between you, most likely,” Bones corrected.

“I will make the attempt,” Spock agreed.

Jim didn’t exactly tune out Spock and Scotty, but he turned away from them and toward Bones and Chekov, to the extent it was possible to do so with a wholly imaginary body. _Bones, I’m going to open up the bond as much as I can, see if I can reach through you to Pavel._

Bones reached for him, and Jim reached back, and the two flowed together with an ease born of nearly two years of practice, then together they sought out Chekov. The Ensign’s pattern was a familiar one, not least because he had a fairly low esper rating and had taken to shielding like a fish to mountain climbing, though at least, unlike the kid they’d had to transfer out, he wasn’t terrified of the whole process. _Pavel, focus on me and Bones. We’re real. Sylvia’s not._

_I don’t want to die here._

_That’s right, you don’t. Let us help you._ They shifted further toward Chekov’s mental pattern, almost enough to make a mindscape of their own, necessary if they were to build a solid link, but the real physical distance between them made maintaining the contact an effort, and Bones’ attempt at placemaking dissolved into watercolor smears.

 _Something’s wrong, isn’t it._ Chekov said. 

_You’re at the edge of my range for this kind of thing, and they’re actively blocking us,_ Jim explained.

_I’m sorry, I tried._

Jim projected reassurance and support. _You did well. Just remember you are Ensign Pavel Chekov, I am your Captain, and we are getting out of here._ They were still deep enough for his words to have suggestive power, and under the circumstances, Jim felt justified in taking advantage.

Chekov nodded firmly. “I am Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov. You are my Captain. We are getting out of here. Wherever here is.”

“Good.” He held the contact for a few more seconds before letting the ensign go. “We’ll check in as often as we can, keep you with us.” _Stay with him, Bones. I’m going to try to get through to our hosts._

The tantalizing familiarity of the simulacra’s faces threw him off balance. He strode up to his seventh grade English teacher to grip his elbow. “Bartender. Ed, is it?”

“That’s my name,” he said.

“Can we dispense with the playacting for just a moment, please?”

“I’m not playacting. Are you?”

“No. I’m not. Now I have to assume that you’re aware of what’s going on in this simulation, so I’m going to try again. We’re here because your world is in danger. We want to help.”

“Only danger Tombstone’s in come from you and the Earps being in the same place at the same time, Ike.”

“I’m not Ike Clanton. You have to know that.”

“I don’t know nothing of the sort.”

The simulacrum was only a puppet, but Jim could not tell if it was behaving with such willful ignorance because it could only do what Jim’s mind would allow it to do, or if it was being controlled by the Melkotians and they had no interest in listening. Either way, continuing to talk to the thing was pointless. He returned to the table. “We need to get out of here.”

“Out of town?” Chekov asked. He stared wistfully after Sylvia.

Jim considered correcting him again, but he didn’t have the energy. “Yes, Chekov,” he said. “Out of town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we've arrived in "Tombstone." Most of the dialogue of the simulacra is unchanged from the original episode. Most of the dialogue from the landing party is different. I tried to play a little with the idea that the Melkotians were pulling most of their set dressing from Kirk's memory, and that they were actively trying to interfere with their ability to reason.
> 
> So I kind of lampshade their analyzing the situation more intelligently this time with the idea that they're better able to defend themselves.


	3. This Sure as Hell Ain't Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The landing party struggles to make sense of the simulation into which they have been placed, and suffer a terrible loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK guys. This is the first chapter with the bugs in it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

McCoy considered their situation, the eerily still red sky, the sketched in saloon lacking completeness and detail, the way he could catch at the edges of this reality and feel them resist his effort to change them. He could improve the quality of the bourbon, but he couldn’t affect anything that really mattered. “Spock,” he said, “How long have we been here, by your estimate?”

McCoy’s Vulcan bondmate leaned back in his chair to consider. “I would estimate three point two minutes in the environment in which we beamed down, followed by fifteen point five minutes in this simulation. However, as you know, one’s sense of time can significantly altered in mindspace.”

“Right, right.” McCoy was beginning to seriously worry about the state of their bodies. “All we know for sure is that we’re not dead.”

“There is the possibility that we…”

“We’re not dead,” McCoy repeated firmly.

“Very well.”

“Any indication that we’ve been moved or handled since we’ve been down here?” Chekov tried to get up from the table. McCoy pinned him in place by the arm, not forcibly, but firmly.

“None,” Spock said.

Jim nodded confirmation and added. “If we are on the ship, and no one has come for us, then it is likely the crew has been incapacitated. If we’re on the ground, we should have been beamed up by now, given that we haven’t checked in or responded.”

“Perhaps the Melkotians are capable of interfering with the transporters.”

“Or the perceptions of the crew. Maybe ‘we’ are checking in.”

McCoy slapped his hands onto the tabletop. “The fact remains that our bodies are lying somewhere, probably on the planet’s surface, without access to food or water or protection from the elements. We’re not going to last forever even if the Melkotians don’t kill us. All they have to do is wait us out.”

Jim scrubbed at his hair. “How long do we have?”

McCoy thought. “We can assume our airways are clear or we’d be having serious problems already.” He realized, saying that, that he might have just given the Melkotians intelligence they didn’t need them to have. Too late now. “We’re less than three hours from our executions, so we’ll have to make whatever moves we’re going to make before food and water become a serious problem. That’s assuming that time runs the same in here, which, as we all know, is not a fair assumption.” 

Jim considered both of their assessments for a moment before saying, “As long as we’re in this thing, we know they’re listening, paying attention to us. We still have a chance of getting through to them. I think we should make another attempt to communicate before we try to break out.”

“If we even can,” McCoy said.

Jim nodded grimly. “Bones, come with me. I want to try again with the Earps. Spock, have you tried a grounding shift yet?”

“I have, though a period of meditation might facilitate my ability to access my physical senses.”

“Do it. Scotty, Chekov, keep watch.”

“Aye sir,” they said, together. 

Jim strode over to the building front labeled “Wyatt Earp, Town Marshall.” Bones jogged a couple of steps before falling into stride with him. “Are you sure its a good idea to leave the two of them with Spock while he’s checked out?”

“Spock’s got a solid link with Scotty,” Jim reassured him. “And since distances don’t really mean anything here, it doesn’t matter where Chekov is, we can’t do much more for him than we already have.”

“There’s still a psychological advantage to having eyes on the kid, even if they’re not our real eyes.” 

“Scotty’s on it.” 

McCoy was not reassured. He took a moment, while they stood outside the door to where “Wyatt Earp” was supposed to be, to feel around in the back of his head for Scotty, who was present, dimly, a knot of worried attention he could sense mostly secondhand through his own bond with Spock. He kicked at the dusty ground, annoyed not least at the grainy ugliness of the Melkotians placemaking. Hell, he could do a better job than this. The dry grass at his feet sharpened for a moment, became more three dimensional before sliding back into the bland background again.

Jim walked through the door and McCoy, after half a beat of hesitation, followed. Jim launched into his spiel without preamble. “Good morning, gentlemen, my name is James Kirk, and I’m running out of patience, so how about we get rid of all this and talk to each other like adults.” He waved a hand to indicate the sketched-in office and jail.

“Clanton, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but we told you not to show your ugly face in town again,” the seated figure said. McCoy assumed he must be Wyatt Earp. The face, though, was familiar, as though he’d seen it before. 

Jim’s shock, even second hand, slammed into McCoy so hard he staggered. Jim stumbled backward and nearly fell. McCoy caught him from behind to lower him as gently as he could to the floor. _His face. Why did they have to give Earp his face?_ Jim said. 

McCoy looked again. He’d seen that face before, aged perhaps twenty years, lean, ascetic, almost triangular. A caricature of grief and guilt worn for too long. “Kodos.” He looked the man, the _thing_ straight in the eye. “How dare you! Haven’t you done enough? And to people who are only trying to save your hides.”

“You got one more chance, Clanton. You’ve got until five o’clock to get your horse stealing, scurvy crew out of town. All the way,” Earp/Kodos said.

Jim was still speechless, so McCoy spoke for him. “We’ll be out of town, you stubborn fools. The lot of you.” He hauled Jim to his feet and outside. Seeing Kodos at the age he would have been back when Jim had known him on Tarsus should not have thrown him so badly he couldn’t even walk out of there. McCoy wrapped fingers around Jim’s wrist. He was sweaty and too warm, his pulse rapid under McCoy’s hand. He could trust none of those observations here, but they were, to the extent they were reliable, indications that the Captain was overexerting himself badly, probably trying to push through the illusions to make contact with their makers. “Let’s get you back to the saloon, check in with Spock, see if he’s made any progress.”

“Yes, let’s do that,” Jim agreed. He seemed to have recovered somewhat from the shock, though he didn’t shrug off McCoy’s supporting arm. “It’s possible that if we leave town, that will show them we’re willing to leave Melkot alone. I think that’s our next move.”

McCoy stopped him in the middle of the dusty street. “Are we ready to do that? Leave them alone? Despite the cost?”

“I can’t get through to them, Bones. They’re afraid and angry, I don’t know why, and I can’t give them a reason not to be if I can’t even start a real conversation.”

“So we play it their way as a show of good faith. We’ll get everyone together and walk out of town. Should be simple.” Why did McCoy get the feeling it wasn’t going to be simple at all?

*

As soon as Jim left with Leonard, Spock abandoned the hard wooden chairs for the floor, arranging himself into the awareness posture, one used to center the mind prior to practicing martial arts or to assess the body’s state after awakening from a healing trance. He focused on his heartbeat in his side, the movement of air into and out of his lungs. Those likely had a basis in reality. He dismissed the sounds around him, simplified though they were, and the sensation of his knees against the planks in the floor. These were illusion and beneath his notice. His own mindscape formed sluggishly around him, the web of marital and familial bonds stretching like thread spun from light, the crystalline patterns of his own thought processes laid out before him in complex arrays of triangles and circles, all rendered dim and fuzzy by their captors’ interference. Fuzzy or not, the map appeared to be unchanged, which meant that he could find the discontinuity that left him unaware of his real body just—there. 

He met resistance, blunting and dimming his perceptions, but slowly he shifted his focus into himself. His skin itched. He caught the sensation, uncomfortable though it was, and gave it his full attention. It itched and crawled, unbearably, as if he were submerged in millions of tiny insects. He could not yet open his eyes, the eyelids weighted down with more of whatever was crawling all over him. A sound not unlike sand pouring over stones filled his ears, the crackling whisper of millions of legs marching over his body. The sensation of their tiny bodies moving over every centimeter of his skin, even under his uniform was overwhelming, and it took his full control to remain still. He was lying on a hard surface, most likely packed earth, on his side, with one arm trapped beneath his body and the other outstretched.

He could feel minds now, more than one, but less than millions, it felt like perhaps four or five of them grappling with his own, trying to drag him back down, block the sensations from his body and a part of him wanted to let them take him away from the horror of being covered in tiny, crawling bodies so fragile that he dared not move. If he moved, and they were harmed, he would make a lie of his peaceful intentions. He had to risk opening his eyes, though.

He pulled them open with difficulty. His vision was still obscured by dozens of tiny creatures hanging off his eyelashes, too near for him to resolve their shape. He could see his own hand, completely buried in deep red, burnished bodies that put him to mind of Earth’s army ants, though at that distance he could see that they had an extra two pairs of legs, ten rather than six, and four body segments instead of three. Jim lay nearest to him, also completely covered in bugs, three or four deep. He was not positioned such that he could see any other members of the landing party without moving. A bug ventured onto his left eyeball and his eyes snapped closed and filled with tears by reflex. He did not try to open them again.

He had gathered the intelligence it was possible to obtain without risking crushing the creatures covering him, and so he allowed his awareness to be overriden again and returned to his false self, kneeling on the floor of the saloon. He suppressed the desire to scrub the lingering sensation off his skin. Scott and Leonard crouched beside him. “So, did you figure anything out, Spock?” Leonard asked.

Jim caught his eye. “Report, commander.”

Spock organized his thoughts. A detailed report had a high chance of causing significant distress to the landing party without providing actionable intelligence. He chose his words with care. “We are on the planet’s surface, in physical contact with the dominant life form. They are nonhumanoid and composed of large numbers of subsapient individuals that I surmise pool their processing structures to produce intelligent behavior. We do not appear to be in immediate physical danger, though our bodies are exposed to the elements in their current positions.”

“Can you get the rest of us out of this mindscape?” Jim asked.

“I believe that would be inadvisable at this time.” He looked from Jim, to Scott, to McCoy. “Where is Ensign Chekov?”

“I lost track of him while I was watching you, sir,” Scott said. “I only looked away for a moment.”

“Understood, Mr. Scott.” Spock stood. “We must find him as quickly as possible.”

*

“If the Melkotians don’t want us to find him, we won’t,” Jim said. “At least not by looking. Scotty, stick with me. Spock, stay with Bones.”

“I can hold my own,” Bones argued. “Better than the two of you.”

“And together you’ll be better defended than apart.” He took Scotty by the arm. The link Spock made with the engineer would allow all three of them to track his whereabouts through their marriage bond, but they had a better chance of protecting him if he perceived himself as being near them. They walked out of the saloon into the deserted street.

“No, Chekov!” Scott shouted. The ensign was facing “Morgan Earp,” each of them with heir hands open and hovering over their holsters, while Sylvia stood nearby. Jim was certain that patch of ground had been unoccupied a moment before. “Morgan” swept and arm back and slapped Chekov hard enough that he fell to the ground. 

Scott took a step forward. Jim caught him by the arm, forced them to walk toward the group at a measured pace. “Your quarrel is with me, Morgan Earp,” Jim said, raising his voice enough to be heard.

Earp collected Sylvia from where she stood near where Chekov had fallen. “You don’t have to take anything from that scum, not while I’m here,” he told her. He ignored Jim, walking right past him, pulling Sylvia along by his grip on her upper arm. 

Chekov hauled himself to his feet. “Ensign, stay down!” Kirk said, running toward him, Scott at his side.

Chekov, too, ignored them as though they weren’t there. “Mr. Earp. Get your hands off her,” he said.

Jim took a moment to wave Scotty to a safer location, while Earp released Sylvia and opened his jacket ominously. Jim abandoned all pretense of behaving if he were in a physical space, even closing his eyes to shut out the false visual image, and reached for Chekov’s unique pattern. And slid off as if he’d struck a wall. He opened his eyes to see Chekov striding toward Earp, scowling. Earp’s eyes narrowed for a moment and he pulled out his gun, quickly and almost casually, and fired at Chekov, who fell forward into the dust. Sylvia screamed and ran to him and in that moment, when she crouched over his body as he lay just so, sobbing, he recognized her.

He’d never known her name. He’d seen her clutching at the body of someone, a husband or possibly a father while he’d hidden behind a low wall on a day he never, ever thought about. The moment’s distraction meant he missed the instant Chekov went dark—he couldn’t tell if the contact were blocked or if the Ensign were actually dead.

Two more of Earp’s men emerged from the tumbleweeds at the edge of town to flank him. Jim’s muscles bunched. He wanted nothing more than to run straight at the three of them, for killing the Ensign, who was just a kid and hadn’t done anything to anybody. Scott was holding onto him, restraining him, a meaningless gesture, he ought to just throw him off—he ought to just _be_ wherever he wanted to in this circle of hell they were trapped in. He felt McCoy first, wrapping around him, a brilliant blue-violet angel and when he looked up, his vision skipped, McCoy first standing several meters away and then in an instant holding him tight. Spock stopped a couple of meters from Chekov and Sylvia, watching the Earps cautiously.

“Come on, Clanton,” the man wearing Kodos’ face said. “Let’s do it now.”

Jim couldn’t think. It was the same and it wasn’t. He’d never faced Kodos down, never looked him in the eye back when he was a terrified thirteen year old kid. They’d gotten a semblance of justice years ago, but it wouldn’t bring back the dead. And something clicked in his mind, as though he was being heard for the first time. He chased the feeling, but it faded to fast for him to follow. 

“Captain, we can’t just stand here and take this! They murdered Chekov.”

“You’re thinking like Billy Clanton, Scotty. Don’t let the Melkotians do your thinking for you,” McCoy said.

Jim added his voice. “He’s right, Scotty. Don’t provoke them further. Not now.”

“Accelerating the timetable of our punishment serves no purpose, and cuts off avenues by which we might yet escape our current situation,” Spock said.

The Earps, the one who looked like Kodos and the two who resembled his deputies, stood frozen in place, as if uncertain how to proceed. Spock took Scotty’s arm to lead him, backwards, toward the saloon, McCoy doing the same with Jim. A clock struck three. They had two hours to solve this puzzle. They four of them stopped at the door to the saloon. Jim collected himself enough to speak. “We need to make an attempt to leave town. Show them our good intentions.”

“Are we just going to leave Chekov there?” Scott asked.

McCoy gestured toward the street. Chekov’s body was gone. “If he’s alive, he’s not with us anymore. There’s nothing we can do for him until we get out of here.” He turned to Jim. “Right?”

“Right.” Jim said. “Follow me.”

The four of them crossed to a conveniently placed sign that said, “Tombstone City Limits,” and walked into it—only to find themselves walking back into town in the opposite direction.

“Noneuclidean topology,” Spock noted unnecessarily. “Clearly we are not permitted to demonstrate our intentions in this way.”

Jim perched leaned against a hitching post, thinking. He snapped his fingers. “Because leaving isn’t our intention. We can’t leave the Melkotian system without a treaty, so we can’t leave town.”

McCoy paced near the sign at the edge of town. “Spock, do you think you can break us out of the illusion long enough for us to beam aboard the Enterprise, or at least long enough for us to determine Chekov’s condition?”

“I do not believe it wise for the three of you to be exposed to our current physical state without the filter of illusion.”

Jim did not like the sound of that. “What are you keeping from us, Spock? Are we dying? Dead already?”

“We are, at present, safe, though our circumstances would be acutely uncomfortable to you if you were to perceive them. I will attempt to reestablish my physical state and ascertain Chekov’s condition while the three of you keep watch.”

“Everyone stays together,” Jim said. He walked a few paces into town, slowly and deliberately unbuckled his gun belt, and allowed it to fall. Bones caught on immediately, so that his guns hit the ground a bare second after Jim’s. Spock followed.

Scott shook his head. “I’m not letting go of my only defense!”

“Scotty, drop the guns. That’s an order,” Jim said.

The engineer slowly unbuckled the gunbelt and let it drop. When he returned his hands to his sides, it was around his waist, exactly where it had been. He turned to Jim, his expression more smug that apologetic. “Sorry, sir.”

“Mr. Scott. Recall that we are in an environment constructed of metaphor and intent. If you maintain an intent to harm, even in self defense, you remain armed.”

“I don’t intend to give up my right to defend myself.”

Jim moved to repeat the order, but Spock sent a suggestion that he wait. Scott had to choose to change his attitude, not merely obey. Spock continued. “Consider what is at stake, Mr. Scott. If we are unable to establish diplomatic relations with the Melkotians, it is unlikely further attempts will be able to do so. We will not be able to site the array here, and it is likely that the Melkotians, along with four other civilizations, will be left without protection if another location must be chosen. Would you condemn these civilizations to death?”

Scott tried again, but the belt leapt back to his waist. “I’m sorry, sir. I can make myself do it, but I can’t make myself want to do it.”

“It’s all right. Spock, see if you can determine Chekov’s condition. We’ll stay together here.” He reached for Bones’ hand, then for Scott’s. The engineer gave him a reluctant side eye but took it firmly, not clasping palm to palm, but grasping Jim’s wrist, a helping gesture rather than an intimate one. Jim accepted the compromise. Bones completed the circle, with Spock in the center. Spock closed his eyes, lowered his head, and set barriers between himself, Jim, and Bones. After a minute or so, during which Scott fidgeted and seemed unable to figure out where to rest his eyes, Spock vanished.


	4. Can We Call Time Out?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The showdown at the OK Corral creates an avenue for negotiations to begin, but the crew must subject themselves to one more test to earn the Melkotians trust.

To his surprise, Spock was permitted to escape the illusory landscape unhindered, though the sense of being watched, of pressure relaxed but not released, remained. The intense, unpleasant sensation of the insects crawling on his body—a hive mind in a truly literal sense, perhaps?—took nearly as much control to endure as the Denevan neural parasite had.

If Chekov yet lived, he could not be allowed to awaken under these circumstances. Spock lay still, eyes closed, on the rough ground, attempting to project his intention to move, so that he could do so without crushing the tiny bodies of his captors. He first lifted the hand that lay outstretched on the ground. The creatures flowed off like a living river, leaving only a few passengers itching their way across fingertips and palm. He brought it up, slowly, carefully to shade his still closed eyes. The creatures flooded away from the shadow of his hand, leaving his eyes relatively unobstructed. He opened them, still lying on the ground so he could see only roughed out shapes of his companions.

He tensed the muscles of his other arm, pushed himself upright, again slowly, to give the crawling mass time to clear space for him. They obliged, though they clung to every part of him that wasn’t in danger of contacting the ground. He stood, identified Chekov’s form, still covered with its own glittering, crawling coat and took four measured, careful steps, each time placing his toe first and waiting for the space around his foot to clear before shifting his weight.

He could not open his mouth. _I will ascertain the condition of my crewmate,_ he projected, along with as precise an image as he could muster of turning Chekov to clear the insects from his face, then assessing pulse and respiration. 

They flowed clear of Chekov’s pale face. Spock could sense nothing of the ensign from here. He was either dead or deeply unconscious. He pressed two fingers to the Ensign’s throat, the steady pulse a clear, but unnecessary indication that he lived, as the touch brought with it the slow delta wave pulse of his unconscious mind. Like the rest of the bridge crew, Chekov had signed an advanced directive that permitted Spock or Jim to act in circumstances like this one. He would have to assume a more stable sitting position. Again, he rehearsed his movements in his mind several times, projecting them so that the creatures would be able to evade his movements. It could be hoped that his caution would provide them with more evidence of his and his Captain’s peaceful intentions.

He settled carefully into the closed meditative posture at Chekov’s side, knowing that he could maintain the pose even deep in his own mindscape for hours at a time, then reached to touch Chekov’s face, his eyes already closing. _Ensign,_ he called, then, more cautiously as he sensed the awakening young man’s fear, _Pasha._

_Am I dead?_

_No._ Chekov’s somatic senses came on line for a bare second, exposing him to the intense prickling of thousands of Melkotian feet on his skin and he panicked, fortunately still paralyzed. Spock cut off the sensation and briefly sketched out a blank mindscape while he caught Jim and Leonard’s threads to find his way back to the simulation. For a moment, he feared he would be unsuccessful, but then the bond caught him back up and he was able to pull Chekov along with him. The simulation settled into place around him and he opened his eyes first, testing, then guided Chekov to full consciousness. They found themselves in the center of the ring made by Jim, Leonard, and Scott’s joined hands. Scott’s gun belt was still about his waist, the others in a pile at their feet. 

“Pavel!” Scott said first, pulling the bewildered ensign into a crushing hug, “We thought you were a goner!”

Jim turned his attention back to Scott and Chekov. “Scotty, Chekov, if I can have your attention, please?”

The two of them straightened their uniforms. “All of this,” he gestured around them, “is the Melkotians’ attempt to communicate with us. It’s all we’ve got, so we won’t be leaving until we’ve stated our case and know we’ve been understood.”

“But they’ll kill us,” Chekov said. He swept a hand down his own unmarked chest.

Spock corrected him. “We have demonstrated that they cannot do so in this space.”

“So far,” Leonard noted.

Jim sighed. “The mission is worth the risk. Scotty, now that Chekov’s safe with us, you think you could take off that gun belt?”

Scott made another attempt. The gun belt returned to his waist. “I just don’t trust them.”

Jim held Scott by the shoulders, a gesture he had all but given up in physical space. Here, it served to capture Scott’s attention and reinforce the link. “You don’t have to trust them. You have to trust us. All four of us. We can and will look out for each other. You don’t need the fake guns.”

Scott regarded the captain grimly, then met Spock’s eyes and clumsily sought out Spock’s end of the link. “Probably doesn’t work anyway,” he grumbled. He threw down the gun belt one more time. This time it landed on top of the others with a dull clank. “What’s the plan, sir?”

“We’re going to the OK Corral.”

“That sounds like a great idea. Fantastic idea,” Leonard said, hiding his agitation and fear under a veneer of irritation, as was his habit. He visibly and sensibly steeled himself, squaring his shoulders and blowing out an exaggerated breath. “The shock of getting shot could knock one or more of us out,” he noted. “We may know this isn’t real, but our monkey brains don’t.”

“I will endeavor to impress upon all of our ‘monkey brains’ the true nature of the threat we face, Doctor,” Spock replied, and was rewarded with the ghost of a wry smile at his acceptance of Leonard’s idiom.

Chekov and Scotty looked from one to the other with gallows faces. Scott punched Chekov on the arm. “At least you knew what you were getting into when you signed on.”

“You could have transferred without damaging your career.” Chekov’s complaint was touched with affection regardless.

Scotty chuckled. “Make no mistake, young man, the Enterprise is my ship. I just let the two of them ride along.”

*

What passed for fencing around the OK Corral would never hold a real horse. Jim paced the arena, fenced on three sides out of four, a building front without a building or clear purpose bounding the remaining side. He had no idea what time it was supposed to be. Would the Melkotians allow them to cool their heels here for two hours or more, or would they push the artificial timetable forward? The clock chimed to get their attention. Jim looked up to see it hanging without benefit of a wall, the analog hands reading ten minutes to five. So, the Melkotians were impatient. Fine by him. “All right everyone, gather round, strategy session.” The other four approached to stand in a rough circle, Scott’s arms folded defensively across his chest. “I’m going to try to talk to them before the shooting starts, if any shooting starts. Spock, can you assist the four of us with the bullets, such as they are?”

“I do not believe you require any assistance, Captain. Nor you, Doctor, though I am willing to ease any remaining fears you might have. Mr. Scott, with your permission?”

“Aye,” the engineer said, resigned. Jim could feel the two of them move into their own space for a few moments, then Scott walked away to lean against the fence.

“Mr. Chekov?”

The navigator stopped pacing and looked up. Spock caught his eye for a moment and Chekov settled, the thrum of barely controlled panic Jim had sensed since the ensign and Spock reappeared finally smoothing away. Spock took his arm and walked him to the fence, placing him next to Scotty. “It was necessary to limit his awareness for a time. There has been trauma that will require resolution.”

“Getting shot will do that to you,” Bones noted. “I’ll be fine as long as I know the both of you have my back,” he said.

Spock extended two fingers to Bones, who returned the gesture before pulling Spock into a brief embrace. They took their places beside Scott and Chekov. Jim stood a little in front of the rest. The Melkotians recognized him as their leader. He should take advantage of what few concepts they seemed to understand about each other.

The clock chimed, the sound grandfather clock resonant. The Earps walked out from behind the corral wall in unison with Doc Holliday, pulled their guns, and fired. Bullets tore phantom streaks of pain through their bodies, but the simulation had lost its power. The pain itself was a mere shadow without reality. The guns never ran out, even long after they should have, but after perhaps a minute the Melkotians seemed to sense they were not having the desired effect, and they stopped, the simulacra running forward. One, the one who looked like Kodos, threw a punch that felt almost as real as a fist and sent him staggering. He ended up turned around backwards, just in time to see Morgan Earp rush at Bones and phase right through him while the doctor turned to Spock and gave him the smuggest eyebrow he’d ever seen.

The simulacra froze, then vanished.

A single figure, small in the distance, walked toward them over the dusty ground. It was female, young, with dark curls, and it wore a monochrome bodysuit under a semitransparent shift, a look that was popular this year with young women. “Joanna,” Bones breathed.

“Daddy,” she said, a smile on her face. She stood her ground. “You refuse to leave. You refuse to die.” She turned to Spock. “You refuse to kill, even though you have seen our true form and it repels you.”

“And you.” She turned to Jim. “We wore the face of death, and you still did not kill.”

“We’ve been trying to tell you, all this time. Your world is in danger. We can help, but not if your probes destroy our ships.”

“We see no danger.” Joanna studied each of them. “And neither did you. It is easy to talk peace when you believe you are safe. It is not so easy when you are afraid.”

“We’re not to be feared.”

“You have enemies we should fear, then? Kill, perhaps?”

Spock took a turn. “The threat you face is no enemy, but merely a force of nature. A star, gone hypernova, has sent a pulse of high energy radiation in the direction of Melkot. It will not arrive for many years, but it will take much of the time remiaining to build a shield around your star system to deflect the energy.”

Joanna considered briefly. “If we allow this, your kind will find a reason to harm us later. You will find us a threat. Your kind hate ours. It is your nature.”

Jim shook his head. “We can choose otherwise. We do choose otherwise.”

Joanna approached Spock. “You are able to bend the will. We have seen this.” She gestured toward Chekov and Scotty. Scotty opened his mouth to protest, but closed it at Jim’s head shake. She continued. “Make them forget us. We will test them, each, alone. To see if they are as above violence as they say.”

“Captain?” Spock said.

“I won’t order you to do this. Or anyone to allow it. But for myself, I am willing,” Jim said.

“I’ll do it,” Bones said.

“Well, hell, if you’re in I am,” Scott said. “I am never leaving Engineering again, though. Mark my words.”

Chekov blinked himself out of his seeming stupor. “You are saying I will awaken in a place I will think is real. And I will be afraid. And I will not kill, yes?”

“Whether you kill remains to be seen,” Joanna said.

“I will do this,” Chekov said.

Spock told Joanna, “What you propose is difficult, but I believe it can be accomplished. However, I must make a request in return.”

“What is this?”

“We must return to ourselves for a time. To eat and drink and place ourselves more comfortably. I also must be able to touch each of them to achieve what you request.”

“This will be permitted.” She inclined her head briefly then vanished along with the OK Corral. They remained in swirling fog for some thirty seconds, then the fog, too, cleared away and Jim found himself lying on the ground, one arm half numb from being pinned awkwardly underneath him. His skin burned, as though sunburnt or perhaps sand scoured, though there was little wind. He rolled to his feet, stomping and stretching sensation back into his limbs, Chekov doing the same while Spock worked more systematically through a series of efficient movements and Bones crouched beside Scotty with his medkit. The sky was the same red-gold shade as it had been in the simulation, the soil rust-orange. They stood on a carpet of moss and lichen, blues and greens so dark as to be nearly black. In front of them a curved wall perhaps three meters high and the color of the soil, decorated with large sweeps and ridges, a paisley pattern, with smalls swirls inside the large ones, and smaller still inside those, iterating to the limits of Jim’s vision.

He hobbled over to Bones and Scotty. “Nothing to worry about, Captain,” Scotty assured him. “Just turned an ankle when I fell.”

“Broke. He means broke,” Bones corrected. “Though it’s not like I can blame you for carelessness.”

Jim reached to touch where Bones’ forehead and eye were swollen and darkly bruised, accepting the twinge of pain that came with the gesture. Bones winced. “I hadn’t noticed that. How does it look?”

“Basic black eye.”

“Terrific.”

“I can run the dermal regenerator over it for you,” Jim offered.

Bones considered the offer for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t want you using it that near my eye. You slip or get the depth wrong I’ll have to culture a new cornea.”

He had a point, and he wasn’t bleeding, so Jim let it go. “My skin stings,” he said. He pulled up his sleeve. The thin skin of the inside of his forearm was pink and marked with tiny scratches, as if it had been scrubbed with sandpaper. 

“Ours too. Must have been a sandstorm or something come through here while we were out.”

Spock crouched beside them, Chekov following. He pressed his lips together for a moment, preparing to give them bad news, Jim could tell. “We all bear similar minor abrasions.” There was a rushing sound coming from the adobe wall a few meters from them. Spock turned his head briefly toward it, then said, “Our hosts are hive minds composed of numerous insectoid components. Please do not be alarmed.”

They poured out of an opening at the base of the wall and swarmed toward the five of them, a mass of deep burgundy legs and bodies and antennae that poured thick over the ground, more like lava than water. The river separated into four tributaries as it approached. Jim forced himself to suppress the urge to run. Spock knelt before one, and it split to surround him. He reached out a cupped hand, and they poured into it. He realized then, looking back at his forearm, the source of the scratches and was glad Spock had kept the specifics of what he must have seen to himself.

 _Captain?_ Spock called him into his meld with the being. Jim sat crosslegged beside him, then allowed himself to fall into rapport with them both.

He had expected the creature to be somehow plural, a chorus rather than a single self, but instead the person who was present with them, wearing Joanna’s face, was as singular as any of them were. _We will test each one separately, while the others keep watch. If all behave as you claim you will, we will hear more of this shield you wish to build. If not,_ The being grew faint and blurry for a moment, as if conferring with its companions. _We will permit you to leave with your ship. But never return._

_Agreed._

Jim disengaged to check on the rest of the landing party. They were drinking bottles of water and nibbling on ration bars from Bones’ medkit. Bones handed him two, both apple cinnamon oatmeal flavored. “Make sure Spock eats, would you? Damfool scheme you and these bugs have cooked up.”

“It’s our best chance of getting the array built.”

“I told you I’d do it. I don’t have to like it. Now, I think I’m going to have Spock take Chekov down first. Get it over with, he won’t have to sit and watch the rest of us. I’ll go next, then Scotty, then you.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Spock approached. He looked tired already. Bones helped Chekov lie down in a space they had cleared of rocks. Chekov crossed his arms protectively across his chest. “Are you prepared, Ensign?” Spock asked.

“No, sir,” Chekov said. “But I don’t think I ever will be, sir. Please do it now.” He closed his eyes tightly. Bones ran the medscanner over him, grasped his wrist to take a pulse, then backed off to allow Spock to work. 

It took longer than he’d expected, nearly ten minutes before Spock moved to sit between Jim and Bones. Bones immediately wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close, the two of them dropping away while Jim held himself separate to keep an eye on Chekov. All four rivers of red poured over Chekov’s body, mingling as they covered him entirely from head to foot. Bones let go of Spock only enough to move to face him, took both of Spock’s hands in his own, and pressed their foreheads together for a few seconds before perching on a rock next to Chekov, medscanner at the ready. Spock had settled under Bones’ touch, and was meditating quietly.

Kirk sat next to him on the ground, keeping clear of stray insects. “How is he?”

“Chekov? Not good, but not in any danger right now.”

“How is Spock?”

“Chekov had a little trouble at the beginning. Spock’s got to go deep to do the memory suppression. It wasn’t easy for either of them.”

“Nothing about all this has been easy,” Jim said. They both watched Chekov, completely at the mercy of aliens they could only hope would keep their word.


	5. Who are you when you're alone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chekov, McCoy, and Scotty are tested by the Melkotians--each in the way they most fear they will fail.

Pavel was cold. Cold under his layers of ragged, greasy clothes, cold under his woolen trousers over rags over long underwear, cold under the heavy, fur-lined boots that had so far kept him attached to his toes. Nature called, nonetheless. He stomped through a foot of powdery snow into woods that gave little cover. The evergreens hadn’t dropped their needles, but the lower branches of most of the trees had been snapped off by marching troops or shot off in skirmishes. He had to march for a couple of minutes until he could no longer see his companions. 

He pulled off his mittens long enough to rummage in his pants and oh, cold hands on that part of him was barely worth keeping his clothes dry. When he was done, he turned around to the sound of a branch snapping behind him, mouth open to tease whichever of his friends it was. It was no friend. The face was pale, worn and gaunt under the gray helmet. One of the Kaiser’s men. One of his boys, more like it, he didn’t look more than sixteen. Pavel felt for his gun. The boy did the same, but it tumbled out of his rag-wrapped hands to land on the snow between them. They stared at each other, not quite knowing what to do next until Pavel fished his pistol out of his layers of winter gear and pointed it at the boy, flicking it to the side to indicate he was to follow.

His prisoner stumbled ahead of him, hands clasped on his head, weaving a little as though sleepwalking. “Namen!” Chekov barked, sounding more confident than he felt.

“Peter Hesse,” the boy muttered into his threadbare scarf.

“How old are you, Peter Hesse?” Pavel asked.

“Fifteen,” the boy said.

Pavel trudged back to the line, keeping his eye on his prisoner’s back. “Commander! I have a prisoner!” he shouted.

His superior officer, a tall, dark-haired man with severe, angular features, regarded Pavel’s prisoner. “I can spare no one to guard him. Shoot him.”

The boy flinched at the officer’s words. Pavel shook his head. “I can guard him.”

The commander’s voice hardened. “Are you contradicting a direct order? He’s a Hun. Shoot him.”

“Sir, please.”

“We cannot spare supplies to feed and clothe him. Shoot him, or I will execute you for dereliction of duty.”

This was wrong. Commander Supov would not require him to do such a thing. Everything in his gut told him he must not kill a mere boy, even if refusing would lead only to his own death and would do nothing to save Peter Hesse. His comrades in arms had begun to gather, to stare at him and his prisoner. Supov addressed them. “Remain here.”

He gestured to Pavel. “You. Walk with me. Bring your prisoner.”

Pavel gestured with the gun. Peter walked beside him, his face too familiar, as though they had met somewhere before. The commander was a good man, as such men went, neither cruel nor capricious, but his word was absolute, and he did not tolerate disobedience. He was a mere foot soldier, his role to obey without question. But that wasn’t right, not just in the deep, visceral sense of wrongness he felt in killing a child who was no longer a threat, but in another sense. As though the order itself were illegal, or ought to have been illegal. _I don’t belong here,_ he thought, incongruously.

He had little understanding of the war. Germany was at war with Russia, and there were allies on both sides, jostling for territory, for which ruler had claim to which bit of blood-soaked ground, and it was wrong, all of it, wrong, that young men and boys should die to fuel the egos of men with money and position. He shouldn’t think these things, the thoughts were out of place—out of time—and then they were out of time in truth, standing in a little hollow out of sight of the rest of the soldiers, and the Commander turned to him. “Here. Now.”

Pavel raised his gun. It rattled in his hand. The prisoner stood quietly, his face gone impossibly whiter. Pavel lowered the gun, threw it on the ground.

The Commander raised his own, cocked it, and pointed it directly at Pavel’s face. “Pick it up,” he said.

“No, sir.”

There was a terrible noise, a flash of color from the end of the barrel, and everything went dark.

*

Spock stood a little over a meter from where Chekov lay still, covered completely in the massed Melkotians. He had been prepared to wait an hour or more for whatever scenario the aliens planned to play out, but a mere nine point four minutes later Chekov jerked and the centipede-like bugs covering him poured away as if his movement were a signal. Leonard picked his way around the streams of bugs to squat beside him. Spock followed to kneel near Chekov’s head. “He’s in A-fib,” Leonard said, dropping his head subtly, an indication that Spock should go after Chekov while he tended to the ensign’s physical needs.

He settled into position and allowed himself to sink into a meld, trusting Leonard to keep them both as safe as possible under the circumstances. Shock and disbelief greeted him, the ensign pulled tight into himself, too fearful of what he had seen, no, too fearful of _him_ to respond to his touch. If he were Leonard, he would have sworn. _Pavel_ , he called out. The ensign retreated further. _Pasha_ he said, keeping the projection steady and allowing his true feelings, protective, almost fatherly, for the younger man to be apparent. 

_You hurt me._

_I regret the necessity._

_You **killed** me._ They were shifting slowly, further into synchrony, Pavel creeping closer, then pulling back into himself, overcome with fear.

Spock extended a thread of awareness outward to Leonard. _Is he stable?_

“Stable enough,” Leonard said.

Spock withdrew from Pavel’s mind, then lifted him off the ground and carried him to where Jim sat against the adobe wall. “Ensign Chekov suffered significant emotional trauma,” he told Jim. “It may be better if you assist him, for the time being.”

Jim nodded agreement, and Spock set Pavel down so that Jim could wrap an arm around him. He hoped that, when the ensign awoke, they would be able to discuss what had transpired and repair the evident damage to their working relationship. He returned to the shallow depression in which Chekov had lain to find Leonard already on the ground, his medscanner sitting on a rock a meter or so away. Spock sat down beside him, expecting to be assailed by the sarcastic complaints he used to deflect anxiety. Instead, the doctor offered him a wan smile. “I know how hard this is for you. I’m not about to make it worse.”

“I appreciate your logic,” Spock said.

“Now there you go, insulting me,” Leonard teased. He wriggled his shoulders, getting comfortable, and closed his eyes. When Spock reached, Leonard reached back eagerly, offering him a moment to restore his equanimity. They could spare little time, but Spock indulged his bond mate. They flowed together with the ease of long practice, taking comfort in each other. Leonard called them back to task. _All right, let’s get on with this. Surgical drop, I assume?_

_You assume correctly. I will place the block after you are unconscious._

_See you on the flip side,_ Leonard said, then willed himself still. Leonard’s prior experience, along with the bond they shared, made the process nearly effortless. He completed the block and released Leonard to the Melkotians, though he chose to keep watch at his side.

*

Leonard McCoy walked around a corner in the dimly lit maze of sewers, took a few more steps, and realized that he was alone. He jogged back the way he came, back around the corner. Spock and Jim were no longer there. He was lost. That was wrong, he ought to be able to find them anywhere, it shouldn’t be possible for him to be parted from them, though abruptly he realized he didn’t know why. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself, wondering where he had dreamed up the idea that the universe owed him so much. He could get lost as easily as anyone else, especially in this mess. “McCoy to Captain Kirk, where did you get off to?” he said into his comlink.

Nothing. “Spock, where did you go?” Silence on the other end. Not even static. 

Water dripped from every surface, the echoes making it difficult to pick out any sounds that might give him a clue to where he was. Reflections from the bluish lights installed every few meters along his path shimmered in the water he waded through and on every slime coated surface so that objects cast multiple vague shadows and it always looked like something was about to leap out of the gloom at him. He made his way forward slowly but stopped short when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. It has been a sort of sliding movement, as though a bit of the slime on the walls had come to life and moved out of the beam of his flashlight. He shook his head, but put a hand on his phaser, just in case.

There wasn’t supposed to be anything alive of that description down here, was there?

Just keep moving forward, he told himself. He placed each foot carefully, planting it, then putting his weight onto it, unsure of what hazards might be hiding under the dark water. Something brushed past his left boot. He stopped dead still for a count of ten before raising his foot to take another step. Water lapped against the walls. Something rubbed against his boot again. He was sure he hadn’t imagined it. He lifted his foot and it tightened around his ankle like a fat, rubbery rope, holding him in place. Indistinct blobs the size of grapes coalesced on the wall beside him like water beading up in a high wind, flowing together into a ropy mass like a fat, translucent eel. The eel-shape under the water tugged at his ankle, forward and back, as if searching for something, then one end rose out of the water to slither up the wall and merge with its companion. The thing, eyeless and slick, with an appendage like an elephant’s trunk at one end, peeled away from the wall to hang half a meter from his face.

He put his hand on the phaser hooked to his belt, but didn’t draw it yet. The thing retracted to the wall, slid down, and wrapped itself around his wrist, still using the wall for purchase. It was cold and slimy, softer than a snake or eel, more liquid than solid. It pulled him along. He snatched his hand back, but the thing solidified around his wrist and held it fast. A living non-Newtonian fluid, he thought. Spock would be fascinated, no doubt. The slimy rope dragged him forward again. Even if he hadn’t been terrified of what it might be doing, the feel of cold, thick goo on the skin of his arm would be enough to send crawling shivers up his back and into his scalp. He planted his feet. There were no handles he could grab onto, and the floor was slick enough that he slid forward anyway. He pulled the phaser from its holster with his free hand, set it to the narrowest cutting setting, and aimed it at the slimy rope attaching him to the wall. It sizzled and stank of burning seaweed as he cut through it. His hand snapped free. Bubbles rose and popped all along the wall beside him, making a high pitched hiss. He moved as far as he could from that wall without touching the wall opposite and broke into a run for several meters before his foot caught on an unseen obstacle and he went down into the dark water. 

“Dammit!” he snapped. The word echoed down the tunnel. He scrambled back to his feet, uninjured, fortunately. He reached for the comlink. It was gone. It must have fallen off his belt when he’d tripped.

There was nothing to do but keep going in hopes of finding a way out. The bluish lights flickered overhead, intermittently illuminating the walls. The water grew soupy and thick with strands of slime that stuck to his pants and crawled independently, like liquid worms, up his body and into his hair. They flowed together into a fat rope and latched onto his wrist again trailing down his body, leaving no good space for him to use the phaser to cut himself free. He kept walking. It allowed him to do so unhindered until he reached a branch in the tunnels, then it pulled him hard to one side, hard enough that he almost fell again. He had no choice but to follow it down a slight incline into water nearly up to his waist. After some minutes, he found himself standing in front of a wobbling, semitransparent glob of the stuff that filled most of one tunnel branch, so he would have to either squeeze past it or go the other direction, from which he could hear the roar of what sounded like a significant amount of water pouring down a steep incline. He couldn’t see far enough down that branch to know where it went, and there was a step down. He would have to either try to pass the ball of mobile slime or brave the possible waterfall. He walked toward the thing, hoping it wouldn’t eat him or squash him up against the wall to suffocate or any of the other ugly possibilities that crossed his mind. It spread out and flattened as he approached, forming a near continuous membrane blocking his path. There was a thicker area in the middle, a mostly opaque blob. If he vaporized it, he could kill the thing, perhaps, and keep moving down the tunnel. But so far it had not made any aggressive moves despite its horrifying appearance. It had merely directed him here and stopped.

He could not justify killing it, whatever it was. Not yet. Not unless the situation became so dire that he could not stay where he was. What if it was holding him here, waiting for companions to arrive so it could eat him. He looked down into the dark, squatted to feel along the edge where the water poured out and down. Something nudged him in the small of the back. He turned to see another gooey tendril extending from the main mass. It nudged his shoulder.

Was the thing intelligent? Was it trying to tell him something? Was it trying to trick him into leaping to his death? It nudged him again. “All right, I may be stupid for listening to a giant ball of goo, but here goes nothing!”

He slid his feet over the ledge, turned his back on the dripping creature behind him, and crept forward. There was a moment of weightlessness he mistook for falling-- 

\--and then he was back in a tantalizingly familiar nowhere. _Come back,_ a voice said. It sounded like Spock’s voice, though the pitch was strange, too warm and sweet, a voice he could listen to for years. _Good. Be here with me._ The voice surrounded him, he felt protected, beloved—the word striking him so strange that he struggled briefly, wondering if the creature was lulling him to sleep before eating him. 

_My apologies, Doctor. Please allow me to restore your memory._ Spock’s voice became suddenly more formal. 

_Who the hell fucked with my memory?_

_Please._ Urgency and concern. He had the sense again of being cradled, as though he were a damn sight more precious than he knew himself to be, and after the lingering fear of his walk through the sewers under what planet were they on? Had any of that even been real? He allowed himself to be drawn into that gentleness, and in a moment, he remembered why it was so familiar after all.

*

Scott’s three superior officers were generally given to professional behavior on duty, even if he suspected that he was missing half their conversations, so he was a bit surprised to see Spock lean forward a moment after the doctor’s eyes opened to kiss him on the mouth. McCoy allowed his bond mate to help him up, then crossed the few steps to where Scott sat.

“Scotty,” he prompted.

“Aye,” Scott said. He arranged himself into the slight depression in the ground they’d cleared of rocks and waited for the doctor to pronounce him sufficiently fit, for all the good it would do. He didn’t like all this vague metaphorical bullshit. Give him a warp coil to recalibrate or a life support system to troubleshoot and he was in his element. But this—this reminded him far too much of literature class. Or worse, Art Appreciation.

From his angle, he only saw Spock’s boots as he approached from above and behind. It was a terrifyingly vulnerable feeling, more so than usual—and the fact that there was a usual was a good indicator of how strange his life had become of late. He calmed himself by imagining music, a lilting tin whistle melody he turned to every time this sort of thing happened. He wondered if Spock and Jim had begun to tire of it yet. _Never, Mr. Scott._ There was the familiar shifting of perception, as though he’d been twisted a quarter turn out of reality and then a pause, in which he was held firmly, but gently. His mind could not have wandered from his task had he wanted it to. _I regret this will be difficult and unpleasant. I require nonrevocable consent, as you are likely to resist. The mind does not allow this level of sabotage willingly._

Scott was not the best at relinquishing control at the best of times. It was for the sake of the mission, and for countless lives that would be saved by the array if it could be built, that he acquiesced. _All right then. Go on._

At first, the enforced stillness became an unbearable pressure. He could not finish a thought, he couldn’t remember where he was or why he was here or who was pushing him down as if under an avalanche of sand, hot and sharp and suffocating. He wanted to struggle, to escape, but there was nowhere to go. He scrabbled to hold onto consciousness, but it slipped away from him at last.

*

Montgomery Scott stared in disbelief at the tangle of wire and white putty he’d just found. He’d been doing routine maintenance on the warp coils when he’d noticed a tiny dent in one of the panels leading to the power supply for the antimatter chamber. It was nearly nothing, but he didn’t like to see damage in Engineering, not even minor damage like the dent and faint scuffing at the seam between two panels. When he pried off the panel, the last thing he’d expected to find was a crude bomb. 

He allowed himself one breath to quiet the thoughts racing through his head, the who and the why that had to wait until later. He allowed himself one more, deeper and slower, to trace the changes in the wiring and to note the precise way the explosive had been rigged. Any touch, any spark would set it off. If he shut off the power source, the antimatter in the chamber would destroy at minimum the Engineering department. If he tried to pull the antimatter out of the chamber, shut down the warp engines, the chances for a spark were unacceptably high, and the likely result the same.

He took a scan for documentary purposes and sent the resulting image to the ship’s memory core, and a second copy to Jim’s computer on the bridge. Next, he opened his mouth to order technician Arnolds to switch to auxiliary power, but held his tongue. What if Arnolds had been the one to place the bomb? He didn’t replace the panel. Too much chance of a spark. “Technician Arnolds, I need a spare Johnson bolt from Stores. Would you collect a couple from the quartermaster?”

“Aye, sir,” Arnolds said. As soon as the door slid shut on the tech, Scott stood, crossed the room, and programmed the transporter to excise the bomb from engineering, but waited to initialize until he tapped in the code that shifted the power for the antimatter containment bottle to auxiliary. The space behind him sang as the offending section vanished, then he ran back to seal up the empty spot before too much fluid could pour out of the interrupted conduits and flood the floor.

He saw Arnolds out of the corner of his eye, not gone to Stores but flipping switches on the panel in front of the warp core. Scott tackled him to the ground, caught the hand rising with the phaser before it could fire, and threw it across the room to ricochet off the back wall. He put Arnolds down with a phaser stun, took a moment to check the containment field settings and readjust them to normal parameters—the tech hadn’t had time to disable the failsafes, small mercies.

Arnolds twitched and curled onto his side, already waking from the weak stun. Scott grabbed him by that collar of his jumpsuit. “Why?”

Arnolds smiled with narrow eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Staring into the smug bastard’s face, he couldn’t help himself. He let fly with his fists, barely aware of the bruises rising on his knuckles, three times, maybe four, until Arnolds spat teeth onto the floor and his probably broken nose ran red. He flipped the saboteur onto his back, grabbed him by the jumpsuit, ready to slam him backward into the floor and stopped himself, still angry enough to kill the man who had just tried to kill near everyone he cared about and destroy his beautiful ship besides. It didn’t matter. Arnolds’ life wasn’t Scott’s to take. He flipped him over, grabbed his arms and held him, one knee planted in the small of his back while he called security.

Arnolds deserved worse than Scott had given him, but that wasn’t for Scott to decide. And besides, he thought, he needed to know why he had done it and if the ship was still in danger. As rationalizations for not killing a would-be mass murderer went, it had the advantage of being true. Security’s arrival was signaled by the slap of running feet on deck plates. Scott’s vision swam as though he were about to faint. The last thought he had before the world dissolved around him was the fear that he missed something and Arnolds had managed to destroy the ship after all.


	6. Why were they testing us anyway?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim undergoes his test, and the Melkotians finally explain their justification for their treatment of the bridge crew.
> 
> Also mushy McSpirk at the end because I have no shame.

JT crawled along the retaining wall separating what remained of town from the forest beyond. Tarsus IV’s tiny, ruddy moon cast little light, just enough for his dark adapted eyes to see the place where two trees had leaned into each other to make the A shaped arch he used as a landmark. He crept through the archway into the blue-black woods, adjusting his pack. Half a dozen ration bars scavenged from the back of a cabinet were not much to take back to the kids waiting for him, but they would ease some of their hunger and buy them all a little time. The transmission he and Tom had managed to get out would bring help. Starfleet would come. He had to believe that.

He followed a rough trail up the side of a hill for a hundred yards, legs aching at the exertion despite the route being one he’d taken with ease only a few months before, back when he was eating regularly and all he had to worry about was whether Julie liked him or Tom and whether he liked Tom or Julie best. Now Julie had been dead for nearly a week, and Tom lay in a shelter made of dead limbs and leaf litter, his burned face swollen and purple, his remaining eye bright with fever. He skidded down the other side of the hill to where a small stream trickled over loose stones, the faint moonlight sparkling on the water. He drank too much until his belly stretched and he had the illusion of being full. The feeling wouldn’t last, but he relished the brief reprieve anyway.

He checked his surroundings by ear before setting the pack down to fill the canteens, conscientiously wrapping one strap around his ankle to keep it from slipping into the stream. Cold water flowed past his fingers and, as had begun to happen lately when he wasn’t occupied with an immediate problem, his mind tried to push him toward energy conserving sleep. He shifted on his feet to wake himself up. There was a creak above him, like a branch bending under a weight, and he looked up just in time to see a body leap out of an overhanging tree to land, hard, on his back. JT’s body smacked flat against the sharp stones, knocking the wind out of him. His attacker pulled at his pack, but it hung up around JT’s ankle and the attacker tugged at it, seeming to have a hard time disentangling it in the dark.

Those few seconds gave JT a moment to catch his breath. He swung the leg the bag was twined around up and back, catching the attacker in the jaw, then pulled his foot free and slung the bag back onto his back while his attacker, a slight, skinny person only a little bigger than he was, rolled into the stream. He recognized the face when the faint light hit it. Ben, two years ahead of him in school. Theater kid. The older boy splashed up out of the stream to swing at him. JT ducked under his arm and plowed into his legs, knocking him over again. They rolled into the stream, Ben on top of JT. He was being pushed under, water flowing over his mouth and nose so he couldn’t breathe. JT brought his knee up, got a lucky shot in, and flipped them over when Ben curled over his genitals, howling. Ben was still gasping when his head rolled into the stream, so he got a lungful of water and was too occupied coughing it out to fight back for a few seconds. JT used the opportunity to get in a couple of good punches, and Ben’s head lolled beneath him, hair trailing in the water. He pushed that head underwater, and stopped, a powerful wave of deja vu making him shake his head to clear it.

If I kill him, I will regret it for the rest of my life, he thought. He had won. Ben wouldn’t be able to follow him if he ran right now, while he was still punch drunk. He dragged the kid to the edge of the stream, propped him up, and ran off into the dark.

*

“Why isn’t he waking up?” Chekov asked. 

McCoy shook his head, his eyes focused on the readings on his medscanner. Spock had moved to awaken Jim almost five minutes ago, an eternity for what should have been a simple task for the two of them. He remained crouched over the Captain listening to their breathing labored, the nimbus of their contact shot through with enough distress to set McCoy’s teeth on edge. “I don’t know, Ensign. Something’s not right.”

He heard rather than saw the Melkotians approach. They—or was it she?--coalesced in a round depression like a shallow bowl, the individual insectoid units moving in paisley swirls until they settled into a neat and mostly still spiral. Beside them, Joanna stood, as if he had merely failed to notice her presence before. “You have all been tested and deemed trustworthy. My people are eager to hear of this threat you describe and how it might be averted.”

“Joanna,” McCoy said. “That’s my daughter, by the way, you ought to know since you’re wearing her face.”

“Daughter,” Joanna said, as if trying out the word.

“Yeah. Well.” The concept was probably too strange for a colony organism to understand. Who knew how they reproduced at the colony level? “Can you tell that they’re in pain?” He failed to keep the question from sounding like an accusation.

“I can.” Joanna’s face made itself into a slight frown, the brows wrinkling, as though the alien were attempting to simulate contrition but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. 

McCoy had to look away from her to keep his voice cool and steady. It was hard enough that she sounded like his daughter. Looking her in the face when it wasn’t her was too much for him. “What was his test?”

“The same as all of yours. You each feared you might kill when faced with a particular crisis. This one,” she referred to Chekov, “feared he would be unable to disobey an unjust order. You feared you would not recognize a benign intelligence whose form disgusted you. The builder feared he would be unable to subdue righteous anger.”

“And the captain?”

“He believed he failed the test already, long ago. We gave him a chance to prove he had changed.”

A stone dropped into McCoy’s gut. “Where did you send him?” His voice came out quiet and flat, almost a whisper.

“Tarsus IV, of course.”

McCoy struggled for a long moment to subdue his own righteous anger. “Tell me, what happens to one of your people when they endure something too terrible to bear?”

Joanna was silent for at least another minute. Finally, she lay a hand on Jim. McCoy nearly snatched it away before remembering that her form was illusory. “Sometimes the pattern is lost, and the person dissolves.”

“Hell of a risk to take then, don’t you think?” She must know that Jim was unlikely to die because they’d put him through a damn flashback, but he didn’t feel much like reassuring her. McCoy turned back to Chekov. “You and Scotty keep watch and get in touch with the ship. Have Christine make up some field ration kits for each of us and send them down.”

“Aye,” Scott said from his perch on a ledge near the adobe wall. “Ensign, come away. We don’t want to get mixed up in all that again.”

Chekov winced. “Yes, sir.” He left McCoy with his bondmates and the alien. 

“And you,” McCoy addressed Joanna. “Try to stay out of the way.” 

He arranged himself so he was sitting crosslegged rather than squatting beside Jim. His knees registered a reminder that he was, after all, forty and some. He told his knees to shut up and took Jim’s hand in his, feeling nothing but an aching hollowness until Spock registered his presence and drew him in. Jim was a knot of tarnished gold wrapped in Spock’s sunset reds and McCoy needed more solidity than this cloudy abstraction if he was going to be of any use to anybody. He called up the garden out back of his parents’ house in Atlanta. Spock grew a physical form, which sat in the grass curled protectively around Jim. _Jim, what happened?_ McCoy said.

 _It doesn’t matter, I still killed him,_ Jim’s shoulders shook.

_He is trapped in a flashback. I cannot convince him to allow me to assist._

_For Pete’s sake, the stubborn fool._ McCoy sat down next to them both on the cool grass, put an imaginary arm around Jim and pressed a kiss to his temple. _What happened to you in there?_

 _The boy I killed._ He felt memory pressing at him, not a memory he needed to see to recognize, he’d seen it dozens of times, they all had. The boy Jim had killed, a boy barely older than he was, drowned in a stream for trying to steal the ration bars Jim had just stolen himself.

 _What’s past is past, ashayam,_ Spock said.

Jim uncurled a little, just enough to raise his head. He smiled at the garden, a sad, but appreciative smile. _You always make the nicest places._

_You’re both just too busy to see what’s right in front of you,_ McCoy teased. _I spent a lot of time here as a kid. Good time._

Jim let go a little more. _It felt like I had a second chance, to right one mistake._ McCoy swallowed against the ache of so much grief washing over him. Again. He laced fingers with Spock behind Jim’s back and together they wove a cradle of safety and peace for Jim to collect himself, if only he chose to. Jim pulled away again. _There are no second chances. I remember them both now, when I killed and when I didn’t, but I know which one is real. It doesn’t matter._

 _It matters a great deal, Captain,_. What was Spock getting at, playing the captain card here, where they had agreed their ranks did not exist? Spock went on, weaving his words with extra weight. _Because you spared one life, even only in your own mind, you will have saved billions of others._

Kirk shifted between them so quickly he might have thrown off sparks. The lingering flashback amplified his fears beyond what made sense. _Is it too late?_

_Course not,_ McCoy assured him. _Can I let them in?_

He could feel Jim putting his Captain face on, though his voice was still weary. _Yeah, Bones. I’ll fall apart later. Work to be done._

As if they had been watching, and they probably had, four figures stepped out from behind the shed. Joanna led them. She was followed by a girl of about ten, dark skinned with a cloud of black hair, and two other children, a ragged girl in braids and a little blond boy who looked no more than six. One of the entities, most likely the one wearing Joanna’s face, caught at the edges of the garden and made it more solid. McCoy focused on the space, on the tire swing, then the morning glories creeping up the fence, then the rugged wooden play structure in the middle of the yard. He was relieved of the effort of holding the space together, but found that he could still influence its shape and structure at will. Good enough then. 

Jim stood and straightened his shirt. “Welcome to Earth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Mr. Spock, can you and Bones put up an astrometrics grid?”

“I’ll put up the grid if Spock puts all the stars in the right spots,” McCoy said, rendering the grid in the space in front of himself and the Melkotians. Spock placed the stars, shaded in the boundaries of the Federation, and highlighted Melkot and the approaching gamma ray burst. McCoy gestured toward the girl with the effervescent hair. “Michael?” he guessed.

Spock nodded. “Correct.”

Jim added more softly, “Laura Deill. And Kevin Riley.”

“We accept these names,” Michael said.

“But why children?” Jim asked.

Joanna replied for the group. “You have a compulsion to protect children. And we are, as individuals, far more fragile than you, and as we have learned in the hours you have been here, you know far more about the universe beyond our world than we. Hence these forms, to remind you to act accordingly.”

Spock finished setting astronomical features into McCoy’s grid. Jim chivvied the Melkotians around the display. “This is a sort of star map. It shows your system, Federation space, and the Eta Carinae gamma ray burst.” He ceded the floor to Spock.

“A gamma ray burst occurs when a very large star uses up its fuel and explodes in a supernova, or in this case, a hypernova. Two jets of high energy radiation are emitted from the former poles of the star. These jets are capable of obliterating all life directly in their path for thousands of light years. Melkot, along with dozens of other inhabited star systems, is in the path of one of these jets.” That Romulus was as well was a sticky problem for another day, or likely another decade.

Joanna, who was clearly the spokesperson for the group, said, “You propose to place devices in the far reaches of our solar system. How will these not be destroyed as well?”

“They will be. The devices are quite small, smaller even than the individual organisms that make up your physical forms. They will be produced in large numbers on several small planetoids that will be moved into position over the next several decades. Each planetoid will eject millions of the devices per minute during the bombardment period.”

Jim added, “Moving the planetoids is what takes most of the time. We have to move them slowly enough not to disrupt the orbits of other bodies in your system, and we need to keep ships in the system and a small base so we can catch any stray asteroids before they do any damage.”

Joanna gave them all a calculating look. “We want something in return.” She waved her hand at the star map. “You say putting this array here will save many civilizations, not just ours.”

“It will,” Jim said.

“We will not be occupied without having a say in your Federation.”

“There are rules,” Jim started, a little uncertainly. “We do not extend the offer of Federation membership to species incapable of faster than light travel.”

Joanna frowned at that. “We have allowed your physician to control the character of this thought-space up to now, for your comfort.” Joanna looked at him with an expression McCoy could pretend was almost fond. “We ask to show you why we met you with suspicion and threats.”

McCoy dismissed the 3D star map with a wave of his not exactly corporeal hand because showing off in front of someone who was not actually his daughter but resembled her was too much temptation. “Captain?”

“I think that would be an excellent idea,” Jim said. There was an edge to his voice, and the thought behind it, that he was sure the Melkotian had perceived.

Joanna frowned, then nodded. “Memory keeper?”

The one called Michael stepped forward. The thought space vibrated slightly as she took hold of it and paused, waiting for McCoy to do something--he wasn’t sure quite what. Fortunately, Spock stepped in—all the fussy connection stuff had to be handled by him or Jim. McCoy couldn’t perceive the energy patterns clearly enough and right now Jim was in no state. The garden dissolved around them.

It took McCoy a minute to make sense of what the Melkotians were showing them. Compound eyes by the thousands made the world look shifting and flickery. The colors were wrong, the edges blurry, movement caught more attention than color or texture. Even with the loss of detail, the invaders looked more or less humanoid, with two arms, two legs, and one head. They landed their enormous ship in the middle of prime Melkotian farm country, rich with mosses and liverworts growing high enough to nestle all a Melkotian’s little parts in so the wind couldn’t blow them around. 

It had taken only brief observation to discover that the aliens _could_ be communicated with, after a fashion. It had taken little more to realize that perhaps they shouldn’t be, that perhaps the best response to enormous, unbelievably powerful beings whose machines chewed the earth and brought earthquakes in their wake was to run fast and far and to abandon the beautiful valley for lost.

The Melkotians’ ancestors, however, kept trying. They tried the time worn dance of alliance, carried out when hives from unrelated clans met on the plain. The result had been the annihilation of their emissaries by fire. They tried studying the ways of the massive monsters, the better to plead for their lives, but their scientists met their deaths by poison and flame. Finally, they tried running, but most were too late. The invaders spread poison and plague over the land, making most of a continent uninhabitable for Melkotians or any of the small wild creatures with similar bodies.

The invaders paid the price for their genocide. Twenty years later, the Melkotians returned to the ravaged continent to find only bones and abandoned technology. Without Melkotian hands and feet and mandibles and without the presence of their less intelligent cousins the land could not bear, and the invaders had starved. The surviving Melkotians studied the invaders’ technology, adapted it to beings of their size and shape, and built probes to guard their system so that they would never be invaded again.

McCoy felt Jim flinch as much at the feel of fleeing hive minds winking out as at bleached humanoid bones scattered through dwellings. He moved to send reassurance, but the being carrying the name Michael beat him to it. Before they even returned to the garden around McCoy’s farmhouse, the Melkotians, wearing children’s faces, flocked around Jim and wrapped around him, because even three hundred years gone, Melkotian hive-beings had long memories, and the loss of so many ached in them, too.

*

Jim perched on the end of the biobed, waiting for Bones to stop waving scanners at him. “I’m fine. Really.” 

“Shut up and drink your juice or I’ll put in an IV.” Bones pointedly took a pull at his own drink. “We’re all dehydrated, mostly since once you and Spock got around to the actual treaty you wouldn’t take enough breaks.”

Jim sighed. “Treaties are a mess in the best of circumstances. And you know once the brass gets out here they’ll mess everything up if the Melkotians don’t know exactly what to demand and how.” He might have staked his soul on saving the Melkotians, but the fact was they were right. Getting the Federation envoys to consistently look past their appearance was going to be hard.

“Still, a slot at the Academy? Full Federation membership?”

“In ten or twenty years. They’ll need at least that long to get up to speed. The Federation needs species who can challenge our assumptions.” That was the most important part. The Melkotians needed to be seen or in a generation they could suffer the common fate of the colonized.

Bones nodded understanding. “You’re still not going back down there until you’ve had twelve hours off. You and the hobgoblin.”

“I know, I know. We’re bringing Scotty along to meet with their scientists and engineers tomorrow.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “Oh, he’s gonna love that.”

Jim laughed. “Actually, he probably will. They’ll be knee deep in engineering diagrams in no time. He’ll be the one you’ll have to drag back here to eat and sleep.”

“Engineers. They’re their own species.”

“Kind of like doctors,” Jim teased. He looked around for witnesses, and seeing none, planted a brief kiss on Bones’ lips, imbuing it with the promise of other activities later. “How’s Chekov?”

“Spock’s with him. He’s got the bond damped so he can focus on the kid without you checking on him every few minutes.”

Jim resisted the urge to do just that and started for the door. He stopped himself at the last minute. “Between what we’ve become and where Starfleet sends us on account of it, I’d fully understand if Chekov wants a transfer. Make sure he knows I won’t let anyone hold it against him.”

“To be honest I think he’s more worried about disappointing Spock.” Bones scrubbed at his own forehead, looking at least as tired as Jim was. “I think they’ll both be fine. Spock’s proud as hell of the kid and he won’t hide it at a time like this.”

Jim nodded, the motion highlighting the muffled feeling in his head that was a headache buried under pain medication. “Send Spock back to our quarters when he’s free.” He turned to go.

Bones jogged a couple of steps to catch up. “I’ll come with you. We can see how things are going with Chekov.”

“I thought Spock didn’t want us checking up on them every few minutes.”

“You. He didn’t want you checking up on him. I can be discreet. You are about as subtle as a hand grenade.” They made their way to the turbolift, walking close enough for their elbows to brush past each other, but keeping the public displays of affection to a minimum.

Jim hit the hold button once they were inside the lift and turned to Bones, his eyes bright. Bones wrapped an arm about the Captain’s shoulders and planted a proper kiss on him this time, twitching the nonphysical part of the kiss all the way down into their socks. Jim wriggled his toes before breaking off the kiss to start the lift again. _We’ve created a monster,_ he teased.

 _You’re just jealous._ Bones skipped ahead of him. 

Jim wasn’t but he appreciated the irony that the not actually telepathic member of their threesome was the best at manipulating their mindspace. Spock was already in the command suite with Chekov. Bones arrived first and hit the door chime. Jim fidgeted beside him. “Enter,” Spock’s voice said over the hall comm.

Bones let Jim pass first. As soon as he was through the door he looked for Pavel, whose test has been as traumatic in its way as Jim’s own. The ensign sat at the table of their kitchenette, shaking ball shaped cookies in white powder. He was wearing a fair amount of powder. “Russian tea cakes!” he proclaimed. “They’re not really Russian,” he admitted. “Also they are not really cakes.”

“You’re baking,” Bones said, pretending incredulity.

Pavel gestured to the plates of cookies, one plain, one generously dusted in powdered sugar. “The plain ones are for Mr. Spock. He does not like them so sweet.” Spock passed Jim and Bones cups of tea and seated himself on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter. Bones took his cup to his chair, which was old and threadbare and, according to him, exactly the right broken in shape for his tired ass. 

Spock was also liberally dusted with powdered sugar. Jim elected to pass a suggestive image through the bond concerning how the powder might be removed and was rewarded with the tiniest movement at the corner of Spock’s lip. He pulled up a stool. “You doing all right, Pavel?”

Pavel’s shoulders twitched. “I am promised I will not have bad dreams.” He glanced up at Spock, then started shaking the next handful of cookies in the bag. “And that I passed their test.”

“You refused to carry out an illegal order in spite of the consequences to yourself. You performed admirably, Ensign. I could not have wished for better,” Spock clarified.

“Are you recovered, Captain?” Pavel asked.

“I’m fine, Pavel.” He snagged a cookie.

The last of the cookies tumbled into a shallow bowl on the counter. Pavel turned to wash his hands in the sink, turning himself back from white to beige from the wrists outward. He looked down at his shirt. “I think I will return to my quarters now. A good evening to you all.” He plucked a cookie out of the bowl and left while they were still voicing their goodbyes.

“Is he going to be all right?” Bones asked as soon as the door closed.

Spock nodded gravely. “I believe so. He was most concerned that he was unable to prevent himself from being drawn into the Melkotians’ illusions early in the mission. I believe I made it clear that his inability to protect himself was an accident of his position on the transporter pad rather than a personal failing.” 

Jim tilted his head at the cookies.

“I have noted that when discussing emotionally charged issues with humans, an activity that busies the hands can be helpful.” Spock picked up one of the unfrosted cookies. “It is frequently so with the two of you.”

Jim inspected his stomach ruefully. “It has unintended consequences.”

“Indeed. A fortunate side effect.” Spock retreated to the bathroom. Jim followed. 

Bones shouted after them, “Don’t screw around in there all night! You both need your sleep.” 

“Why don’t you come and join us? Make sure we behave!” Jim shouted back.

“You kids have your fun. This old man’s going to bed.”

Spock closed the bathroom door behind him. “Do you want to wake him in the morning, or shall I?” Jim shut him up with a firm kiss and an image of exactly how they ought to wake their husband in the morning and giggled aloud at his enthusiastic agreement.


End file.
